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How are you holding up?

I’m about to put my phone down and distract myself by looking for jobs again when his reply comes up.

I miss you

My heart pounds. I have to sit down.Is he keeping the phone next to him? If he is, why didn’t he text?

I know why — he’s not the kind of person to tell me to leave in one breath and say he misses me in the next. He was waiting for me to reach out.

Would he have waited forever, if I didn’t pick up the damn phone? The thought hurts.

I don’t tell him I miss him, too, like the ache of a phantom limb. That goes without saying.

You should have Syril install a TV so I can make you watch Unnatural.

I don’t need it. I’m reading through Syril’s library.

A dumb grin sneaks across my face.

So what do you like to read?

The pink books.

Pink…?

A photo comes through a moment later and I choke on a laugh. It’s a clinch cover of a brunette woman gripped in the muscly, burnished embrace of a well-oiled man in a cowboy hat. It’s pink, alright, a dusty rose, the same color as the tips of Lysander’s wings.

I can’t believe I ever thought he could be a snob.

You sleeping properly?

I sleep better when I’m with you.

I groan into my hands.I love you. I miss you. Fuck!

The phone buzzes again.

Are you working at a new bar?

I consider telling him yes to stop him from worrying, but only for a second.

Still looking. Fitzie has some savings. He’s helping me out.

The speech bubble pops up, then disappears. I wait.

Good.

I know he would freely help me. It’s hard enough to take Fitzie’s money, though, and I can only do it because I know Lysander already signed a year-long lease under his name.

We text on and off for the next few days. I tell him about the shitty interviews and how my upstairs neighbor is getting really into blasting EDM at three in the morning. I dredge up bits from the past — the stuff about prison I didn’t hate, like the routine, the library, not really having to think about the future. Bad stories from my past jobs that feel lighter when I tell them to him.

Lysander mostly tells me about the books he’s reading.

It makes my heart hurt. He’s safe, but The Sanctum is its own prison — just one with pretty wallpaper and nice meals. I guess it never registered with me how much he was missing out on, selfishly. He was never free to go out alone, to meet new people or have a life outside the hotel room. I was just as guilty as anyone of only seeing one part of him — his fears, not his potential.

I’m curled in bed, awake and talking to him long after I should’ve put my phone down and gone to sleep, when a sudden urge to hear him in my ear sneaks into my head. I shouldn’t —it’ll only make this whole thing harder. But my fingers tap the words without my permission.

I want to hear your voice