Kaius Oziel
After the breakup, my condo felt less like a home and more like a storage room for memories I couldn't bear to look at. Every corner reminded me of him; Julian's laughter echoing off the walls, the ghost of his woody scent clinging to the couch, the quiet spaces where we used to fit together without thinking. For days, I drifted from room to room, unable to rest, unable to breathe without feeling the weight of everything he had ruined.
It took me days to tell Haden what happened and, as expected, he went ballistic.. so angry he actually wanted to track Julian down and punch him in the face several times. Thankfully, that never happened.
And then, somehow, Lucien slipped into the empty spaces Julian left behind.
At first, it was just messages checking in on me. A simple "Have you eaten?" or "Did you get home safe?" that I brushed off with short replies and half-hearted reassurances. But he never pushed, never demanded more than I could give.
He just… stayed. Steady. Patient. Present.
On the nights when the silence grew too loud, I would find myself staring at our chat, thumb hovering over the keyboard until I finally gave in and typed, "Are you awake?"
The answer was always almost immediate.
"Yeah. What's wrong?"
Sometimes I told him the truth. That I couldn't sleep. That my chest felt too tight. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Julian's lips locked on the girl. Other times, I lied and said I was just bored, that I only wanted to talk. Lucien never called me out on it. He just listened. He told me about his day, about work, about stupid little things that didn't really matter but somehow made the night feel less unbearable.
Bit by bit, my days began to take shape around his presence. Morning coffee with his name at the top of my notifications. Random memes in the afternoon that made me laugh when I hadn't even realized I needed to. Late-night calls where he mostly listened while I talked to myself in circles, trying to unpack years of love and hurt and betrayal.
He never tried to fix me. He never told me I was overreacting, never told me to just move on. He let me be angry. He let me be pathetic. He let me be the worst version of myself and still stayed on the line.
With Lucien there, the sharp edges of the breakup dulled just enough for me to breathe again.
There were moments.. small, fragile moments.. when I realized he had become my safe place without me meaning to let him. The sound of his voice settled something restless in me. The way he said my name grounded me when my thoughts started to spiral. He made the days feel less like a punishment and more like something I might, one day, learn to live through.
If there was a light in the room filled with darkness, it was him.
One evening, after a usual busy day at work where everything went messy and everyone seemed to need something from me, I collapsed onto my couch and stared at the ceiling. My phone buzzed on the coffee table.
: Did you eat?
I stared at the message longer than necessary before typing back.
Not yet.
A few seconds later, he replied.
: Order something. Or I'll get mad.
I huffed a small, disbelieving laugh. Somehow, even through a screen, he always knew how to drag me a step away from the edge. I did as he said, more because it was him asking than because I was hungry. It scared me, a little, how much power his quiet concern had over me.
I didn't realize how much I had started leaning on him.
Days blurred into weeks. The ache faded from unbearable to bearable, from constant to something that only flared up when I was alone too long. And whenever it did, I had someone to call. Someone who picked up. Someone who made it feel like I wasn't as alone as I felt.
Lucien became the one steady thing in a life that had blown apart.
When the knock came at my door one night, I assumed it was him.
I had just finished another long call with him last night. His voice soft through the speaker as he told me about some small frustration at work. I remembered thinking that it felt… nice, hearing about a life that kept moving forward, even when mine felt stuck in place.
So when I heard the knock, my first thought was that maybe he'd decided to surprise me. Maybe he was here with takeout, maybe with that hesitant, lopsided smile of his, the one that always showed up when he wasn't sure if he was welcome but came anyway.
I opened the door.
And my heart stopped.
It wasn't Lucien.
It was Julian.
For a second, I honestly thought I was hallucinating. His eyes were red-rimmed, his hair a mess, clothes wrinkled like he'd been wearing them for days. He looked nothing like the Julian I'd carried in my memories; the one who always seemed composed, put-together, untouchable.
This version of him was… wrecked.
"Kaius," he whispered, voice cracking on my name.
Before I could react, he dropped to his knees.
"What are you doing?!" The words came out sharper than I intended as I instinctively reached for the door, intent on closing it, on putting a barrier between us before the sight of him could crack me open again.
But then he looked up.
Tears streamed down his face, raw and unfiltered, as if he hadn't slept in days. His hands trembled as they reached for the frame of the door like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
"I'm sorry," he choked out. "I'm so, so sorry, Kaius. Please… please, just—don't shut me out. Not this time. I can't—" His voice broke completely, the rest of the sentence swallowed by a sob.
I froze.
In all the years I had known him, I had never seen Julian like this. He had been angry, stubborn, and defensive. He had been cold. He had been distant. But this.. this broken, desperate version of him, kneeling on my doorstep with his pride stripped away.. it was new.
Terrifyingly new.
A part of me screamed to remember everything he had done. Every lie. Every night I waited for him to come home. Every time I swallowed my instincts and believed him when I shouldn't have. Another part of me, the part that had loved him since college… wavered.
Because at that moment, I didn't see the man who had hurt me.
I saw the boy who had once laughed with me in crowded hallways, who shared cheap meals and dreams of a future we were sure we'd face together. The boy who used to hold my hand under the table and scribble three little hearts next to my name in his notes. The boy who had been my first real choice, my first real love.
And now, he was on his knees in front of me, begging for forgiveness in a way he never had before.
"Kaius, please," Julian whispered. "I know I don't deserve it. I know I messed up. But I… I can't sleep. I can't eat. I keep thinking about you, about us. I can't stand knowing I'm the one who destroyed it. Just… just please let me explain. Please."
My grip on the door faltered.
Lucien's name flickered at the edge of my thoughts, like a faint notification I hadn't checked yet. The nights he stayed on the phone with me until I stopped shaking. The way he listened. The way his presence made it possible to stand here at all.
But then Julian's shoulders shook with another sob, and the sound hit something deep inside me that no one else had ever reached.
"Get up," I said quietly, my voice unsteady. "Come inside."
His relief was almost painful to watch. He stumbled to his feet, wiping at his face as he stepped past me into the condo that still remembered him. I closed the door behind us and suddenly felt suffocated by the weight of the past pressing in from every direction.
We sat down, facing each other like lovers and strangers all at once. For a while, I said nothing. I let him talk.
Julian didn't stop. He apologized over and over, words tumbling out between shaky breaths. He admitted the lies. He admitted to… cheating. He admitted things I had suspected but never fully confirmed. He didn't make excuses this time. He didn't blame the situation, or stress, or anyone else. He just… owned it. Every ugly part of it.
The old, familiar ache in my chest flared to life. I cried. I crumbled in front of him. It fucking hurts. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to shove him out of my place. But all I ever did was to cry. Cry until it goes numb.
"I thought you'd be better off without me," he whispered hoarsely. "But I was wrong. I'm the one who can't function without you. I know I ruined everything. I know you have every right to hate me. But I love you, Kaius. I never stopped. Please… just give me one more chance. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you if I have to."
I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to tell him he was too late, that someone else had held me together when he had been the one to tear me apart. I wanted to say Lucien's name out loud, to make it real, to acknowledge the quiet, steady love that had been offered to me without conditions. And a deeper part of me wanted to hurt him like he did to me.
But the words wouldn't come.
Because sitting in front of me was the person I had once chosen without hesitation. The one I had loved so deeply that even after everything, a part of me still carried him like a scar.
In the days that followed, Julian didn't disappear.
He called. He messaged. He showed up. Every day, he found some way to reach me; sometimes with long, heartfelt apologies, sometimes with small, familiar things I hadn't realized I missed. Stupid jokes only we understood. Old songs we used to sing together in the kitchen when we cooked. Drinks from the place we used to go after class back in college.
It was like being dragged backward in time.
Little by little, the distance between us began to shrink. He waited for me in the lobby after work. He drove me home. He sat on the couch, leaving a space between us at first, as if afraid of crossing a line I wasn't ready to erase. He was patient in a way he'd never been before, careful, almost gentle.
And every day, even as I tried to keep my guard up, I felt it slipping.
Every day, it felt like we were back at the start again, like we had somehow been transported to that early stage of courtship where everything was new and sharp and overwhelming. Every day, he chipped away at my walls with apologies and small gestures and the kind of attention I had once begged for in silence.
And every day, I replied a little slower to Lucien.
At first, I told myself I was just tired. That I'd respond later. That Lucien would understand if I needed a bit of space. I left his messages to read more than I meant to. I started opening Julian's messages first.
Then, gradually, I started forgetting to reply at all.
His "How are you?" sat unanswered. His memes went unreacted to. His late-night "Are you still awake?" found me already on a call with someone else. With Julian.
Lucien didn't complain. He didn't double text. He didn't demand to know where I'd gone. His messages simply thinned out, like he sensed the distance growing and chose not to fight it.
It was as if he slowly faded into the background of my life, his presence turning from a constant source of light into something dim, distant, like a streetlamp you pass every day but stop noticing.
Was it because I no longer needed him? I didn't know.
I told myself it wasn't like that. That it wasn't about needing or not needing him. Those things were just… changing. That maybe he was busy. That maybe I was. That maybe this was just how life worked.. that people stepped into your story when you were at your lowest and drifted away once you could stand again.
But deep down, somewhere I refused to look too closely, I knew the truth.
The night Julian and I got back together, my phone lit up with a notification while I was laughing at something he'd just said. I glanced at the screen and saw Lucien's name.
For a moment, guilt washed over me so sharply I almost reached for the phone.
Then Julian leaned in, kissed my shoulders, and pulled my attention back to him with that familiar, intoxicating ease.
My phone stopped buzzing.
Eventually, the messages stopped altogether.
My world began to orbit Julian again, just like it always had. His moods, his needs, his happiness, my days bent around them like they were gravity. The routines Lucien had quietly helped me rebuild were swallowed up by old habits. Late-night calls were once again filled with Julian's voice. My mornings started with his messages.
And somewhere along the way, without me noticing the exact moment it happened, there was no space left for Lucien Klein in the story.