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SEBASTIAN

T he elevator dings. Doors slide open.

I don’t move.

Just stand there—jaw locked, stomach churning, swallowing bile—tasting that thick, metallic nothing that sits like blood and regret on my tongue.

That’s the thing about rock bottom—no crash. No scream. No final moment.

Just the dead weight of it. Settling in your lungs. Stealing the air without you noticing.

You don’t cry down here.

You don’t even breathe right.

You just exist.

And somehow, that’s worse.

Worse than the guilt.

Worse than the shame.

Worse than knowing you built this place brick by fucking brick.

The penthouse is cold. Lights off. City stretched beyond the glass like it’s mocking me.

I don’t take off my jacket. Just go straight to the bar and pour.

Whiskey. Neat. Three fingers, maybe four.

Burns going down. Not enough.

My phone’s been buzzing for the last thirty minutes. Coach. PR. A dozen numbers I don’t recognize. Kane twice. Blake. Even fucking Harper.

Not her.

I turn it off.

Pour again.

Sit on the couch with the bottle dangling from one hand and the glass in the other. Back bent. Elbows digging into my knees. Like prayer.

But there’s no god here.

Just the sound of my name echoing back from the dark—twisted, warped, poisoned by the voice of a kid I destroyed without even knowing his name.

He was right.

I took something that never should’ve been mine. A wife. A mother. A family that wasn’t mine to touch.

Didn’t stick the needle in her arm, no. But I didn’t stop it either. Didn't walk away .

And now?

Now I’ve lost the only thing that ever made me feel like I wasn’t fucking hollow.

I destroyed it.

Of course I did.

That’s what I do. Corrode things. Break them from the inside out.

Another drink. Then another. I don’t even taste it anymore.

I toss the bottle onto the couch.

Down the next shot.

Then hurl the glass at the wall.

It shatters. I don’t flinch.

I drag both hands down my face, try to shake it off, but it clings. Like smoke. Like guilt. Like the truth I’ve been running from since I first saw her in the locker room.

I never should’ve touched her.

But I did. Again and again. And I’d do it all over, because I never knew what it meant to feel alive until her.

Now it’s gone.

She’s gone.

And I deserve it. Every goddamn second of this.

I get up. Stumble to the bar.

Grab another glass. Different bottle. Darker. Meaner.

Pour a shot without looking.

Don’t care how much. Just want it to burn.

Down it.

But the burn doesn’t even register.

The silence is screaming now. Ringing in my skull. Gnawing at the back of my eyes.

For one fucking second, she was mine.

The only thing that ever felt real.

Now there’s nothing.

Just this.

Whiskey. Darkness.

Memory looping like a curse.

Her voice.

Her smile.

I pace. Hit the wall. Barely feel it. My knuckles split. Good.

I want to hurt. Need to.

The room spins. Starts to tilt sideways.

Another glass.

I stare at the elevator for a long time, wishing she’d walk through it. Wishing I could take it all back. Not the feelings. Just the damage.

But the doors stays shut.

And the silence gets louder.

When the bottle’s empty and the room’s just spinning shadow and regret?—

I lie back.

Let it crush me.

Let it end me.

Because this?

This is the punishment I’ve earned.