Chapter 1
He was just another man — nothing more, nothing less.
Mark had tried everything to turn the page of his life. New routines, late-night runs, even forcing himself to smile at strangers in cafés. But every attempt felt useless. She was fatal, written for him somewhere up in the sky long before they ever met.
Some days he woke up strong. “I can live without her,” he told the empty apartment. The words felt solid for a few hours. Then the second day would arrive and he’d catch himself wondering where she was, what she was doing, who was making her laugh. By the third day he was ready to run to her door or beg her to come back to his.
Tonight the loneliness hit hardest. Mark lay in bed, the room silent except for the sound of his own breathing. He turned on the TV just to drown out the memories, but it didn’t help. They had spent too many years together. His hand reached instinctively to the other side of the bed, searching for her warmth. Even if she had been there, she would have turned her back to him, fallen asleep quickly, and left him alone with his feelings once again. Still, he wanted that more than anything.
He had always given everything — even when she hadn’t. He used to tell her he would fight for her, and she would smile, touched but never quite believing. Then she would turn away, lost in her own thoughts.
Mark wasn’t the type to complain or show weakness, but tonight he had no choice. He was too attached, too deeply bound. So he gathered the best fragments of their past — the laughter on rainy Sundays, the way she looked at him after her first coffee, quiet evenings when the world felt right — pieced them together like a collage, and sent them to her. A small offering. A desperate reminder.
Then he wrote the message, fingers trembling:
“I don’t know if this makes everything worse, but I have nothing left to lose. The masks are gone. If you say there’s no way back, I’ll try to accept it, even if the pain breaks me. But if you come back… you’ll save my life. I’ll be happy just to fall asleep beside you every night, even if you turn your back to me. The warmth of your thighs against me in the dark will be enough to warm my hands and my soul until the end.”
He stared at the sent message for a long time.
Mark knew it wasn’t enough to simply say “come back.” He hadn’t always been good to her. There were times he was rough when he should have been gentle, distant when she needed closeness. He felt ashamed of those moments. Yet here he was — helpless, honest, raw.
Because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t change the truth.
He was just another man.A man who couldn’t stop loving her.
And in the quiet of the night, with the TV flickering uselessly in the corner, Mark closed his eyes and whispered into the empty space beside him:
“Come back, love… even if it’s only your back I get to hold.”
The End.
