After My Lover Forgot Me, I Let Him Go

The rain had been falling for three hours straight when I heard the knock.

It wasn't really a knock. More like something heavy leaning against the door. A thud, then silence, then another thud. Like someone didn't have the strength to lift their fist but kept trying anyway.

I was sitting on the kitchen counter with a bowl of cereal I wasn't eating, scrolling through headlines on my phone. The same headlines I'd been reading for four days.

HOLDEN ARMSTRONG STILL MISSING AFTER ON-SET EXPLOSION.

A-LIST STAR VANISHES FROM CEDARS-SINAI — SEARCH INTENSIFIES.

WHERE IS HOLDEN ARMSTRONG?

I knew where he wasn't. He wasn't here. He hadn't been here in months, not since his career went supernova and this apartment became something he visited instead of lived in. His toothbrush was still in the cup by the sink. His gray hoodie was still folded in the second drawer. But he wasn't here.

The thud came again.

I put the cereal down and walked to the door. Our apartment — my apartment — was on the second floor of a building in East Hollywood that smelled like old carpet and someone else's cooking. The hallway light had been broken for weeks. I looked through the peephole and saw nothing but dark.

I opened the door.

Holden was standing there. Or not standing, exactly. He was leaning against the doorframe with one hand, his head down, water streaming off his hair and his jacket and pooling around his shoes. He was soaked through. His shirt was plastered to his chest. There was a cut above his left eyebrow, half-healed, and a bruise along his jaw that had turned the color of a storm cloud.

My heart stopped. Then it slammed back so hard I felt it in my teeth.

"Holden."

He lifted his head. And I saw it.

His eyes. They moved over my face the way you'd look at a street sign in a city you've never been to. Searching. Empty. Polite.

He didn't know me.

"I'm sorry," he said. His voice was rough, like he hadn't used it in days. "I don't — I don't know why I'm here. I was walking and my feet just..." He trailed off. Looked down at his shoes. Looked back at me. "Do I know you?"

The rain was loud behind him. I could hear it hitting the metal railing of the stairwell, hitting the roof of the building, hitting everything.

Do I know you.

Three words. They went through me like a blade.

I had a choice. I understood that clearly, even in the moment. I could tell him the truth. I could say, Yes, you know me. You've known me for six years. You used to sleep on the left side of that bed and steal all the blankets. You once made me pancakes at 2 a.m. because I couldn't sleep and you said nobody should be awake and hungry at the same time. You told me you loved me for the first time in this kitchen, standing right where I'm standing now, and you were so nervous you knocked over a glass of water and didn't even notice.

I could call Nash Perry, his manager. I could call the hospital. I could call the press.

Or I could step aside and let him in from the rain.

I stepped aside.

"Come in," I said. "You're soaking wet."

He hesitated. His eyes moved past me into the apartment — the small living room, the kitchen with its chipped tile counter, the bed pushed against the far wall. Something shifted in his face. Not recognition. Something quieter than that. Like a word on the tip of your tongue that you can't quite reach.

"Okay," he said softly. And walked in.

He stood in the middle of the room dripping onto the floor, and I closed the door behind him. The lock clicked. The rain became muffled.

I went to the second drawer of the dresser and pulled out his gray hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. I held them out to him.

"These should fit," I said.

He took them. Looked at the hoodie for a long moment. Ran his thumb over the fabric.

"These are mine," he said. Not a question.

My throat tightened. "The bathroom's through there. You can change."

He went. I heard the door close. I pressed both hands flat on the kitchen counter and breathed. In and out. In and out. My hands were shaking. I curled them into fists and pressed harder until the shaking stopped.

Then I pulled out a pot and started making soup.

It was the only thing I could think to do. When Holden came back out in his old clothes, his hair still damp but no longer dripping, I was standing at the stove stirring chicken broth with noodles. He sat on the edge of the bed — his side, the left side, without thinking about it — and watched me.

I could feel his eyes on my back. I kept stirring.

"You hum," he said.

I stopped. I hadn't realized I was doing it. It was that old melody, the one I always hummed when I cooked. I didn't even know where I'd picked it up.

"Sorry," I said.

"No." His voice was strange. Careful. "Don't stop. It sounds... I don't know. It sounds right."

I didn't start humming again. I couldn't. If I opened my mouth for anything other than practical words, I was going to fall apart.

I brought him the soup in the blue bowl — his favorite, though he didn't know that anymore. He took it with both hands and ate slowly, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking around the apartment like he was reading a book in a language he used to speak.

His eyes landed on the photo strip taped to the edge of the bathroom mirror. Four frames from a Santa Monica Pier photo booth. Us making stupid faces. Us kissing. Me laughing with my eyes closed. Him looking at me like I was the only thing in the frame.

He stared at it. I watched his jaw tighten. His hand came up, almost reached for it, then dropped back to the bowl.

"Who lives here?" he asked.

"I do," I said.

"Just you?"

I swallowed. "Just me."

He looked at the two toothbrushes in the cup by the sink. He looked at the men's shoes by the door. He looked at me.

I didn't say anything.

He finished the soup. I took the bowl and washed it. When I turned back around, he was lying on the couch with his arm over his eyes. The couch was too short for him. His feet hung off the end.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "For letting me in. I know this is strange."

You have no idea, I thought.

"It's fine," I said. "Get some sleep."

I turned off the kitchen light. The apartment went dark except for the glow of the streetlamp outside the window, filtered through rain. I sat down in the kitchen chair across from the couch. I pulled my knees up to my chest.

He fell asleep fast. His breathing evened out within minutes. His arm slipped off his face and hung over the edge of the couch, his fingers almost touching the floor.

I sat there and watched him breathe.

This was stolen. I knew that. He was the most famous missing person in America and I was hiding him in a studio apartment in East Hollywood. Tomorrow the world would keep looking for him. Nash would keep calling. The tabloids would keep spinning. And at some point, this would end.

But right now, in this room, with the rain on the window and his breathing filling the silence, he was here. He was alive. He was three feet away from me.

I pressed my forehead to my knees and closed my eyes.

I chose this. Whatever comes next, I chose this.

The rain kept falling. Holden slept. And I sat in the dark, holding the fragile, impossible fact of him like something made of glass — knowing that if I held too tight, it would shatter, and if I let go, it would be gone.