Ray loved Leo in the way you love something you're afraid of losing.
Carefully. Reverently. Like if he held on too tight, the universe would notice and take him away just to prove a point.
Leo loved Ray like he had all the time in the world.
He said I love you casually—slipping it into conversations like punctuation. He kissed Ray's temple when Ray was mid-sentence. He planned futures like they were errands: When we're older. When we move. When this works out.
Ray always laughed, half-wondering if loving someone this openly was an invitation for tragedy.
They met by accident. A missed bus. A shared bench. Leo offered Ray one earbud and said, "Trust me," like Ray didn't already feel himself doing exactly that.
They became inseparable in the soft ways that matter. Grocery lists written together. Late-night drives with no destination. Leo falling asleep first, Ray staying awake just to listen to him breathe.
Ray noticed things. Leo's scar on his knuckle. The way he always stood between Ray and traffic. How he signed off every phone call with the same words.
"See you again soon."
Even if "soon" was five minutes.
Even if they were standing ten feet apart.
The night Leo died, they argued.
Nothing dramatic. Just tired words. Misunderstood tones. Leo had smiled at the end anyway, leaned in, brushed his thumb over Ray's cheek.
"Hey," he said gently. "We're okay."
Ray didn't say it back.
Leo died on the way home. Wrong place. Wrong time. A moment that didn't ask permission.
The police used careful language. Accident. Instant. Nothing you could've done.
Ray learned that language meant nothing.
He replayed the last conversation until it lost meaning. Until all that remained was the look in Leo's eyes—unbothered, certain, in love.
At the funeral, people talked about Leo like he was already fading. Past tense. Was. Had been.
Ray wanted to scream that Leo still existed. In the way the couch dipped on one side. In the mug with the chipped rim. In the voicemail he refused to delete.
He kept calling it, just to hear Leo say his name.
"Hey, Ray. I can't talk right now. See you again soon."
Months passed. Then more.
Ray stopped correcting people when they said, "You'll love again." Stopped explaining that love wasn't something you replaced—it was something that stayed, even when the person didn't.
One night, unable to sleep, Ray sat on the floor of their apartment and finally said Leo's name out loud.
"I'm tired," Ray whispered. "I miss you."
The room didn't answer.
But Ray imagined Leo would smile. That familiar, reckless smile. The one that promised everything would be okay, even when it wasn't.
Ray stood, picked up his jacket, and before turning off the light, said the words he had never gotten to say back.
"See you again soon."
He didn't know when.
He didn't know how.
But love had taught him one thing:
Some goodbyes aren't endings.
They're just waiting rooms.
And Ray waited.