Every dawn felt like he was fighting to reclaim himself. He’d sit at the window, watching waves roll in, wondering about her. Some days, he convinced himself she must’ve died in some accident which was all his doing; on other days, he hoped she was living somewhere just to taunt him. Both thoughts hurt in equal measure.
He wrote letters he never sent. “I didn’t mean it,” one began. Another ended with, “You were right to leave.” He burned them all in a metal bin behind the shelter, watching the smoke rise until it vanished into the same indifferent sky that had swallowed her.