A/N: Finally decided to just post this, since I've been sitting on it for quite a while. It's a two-part story, and the second chapter will be up soon.

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Staring at the empty half of my bed, the bare pillow echoes the gaping hole in my heart.

I know why he left, I know it wasn't easy. It's what I don't know that haunts my every waking moment.

And my sleeping ones.

Questions run rampant through my mind unhindered, planting dangerous seeds. Is he going to come back? My instincts all say no, and yet…

For too long I took the simplest of things for granted. The sound of his breathing in the morning when I woke up now haunts the 6 am silence. The phantom feeling of gentle shifting of the mattress, just as when he would turn over at night in the middle of a dream, startles me from my slumber in a jolt.

I've been like this for months.

I spend at least an hour every morning lying in bed, unmotivated to start me day. Staring at the vacant space next to me that used to be occupied by my lover, I can feel its resonant emptiness like it's inside me. The unmarred pillowcase where his unruly hair would bring a smile to my face, without fail, every morning is now hauntingly white.

Now, the un-mussed sheets just taunt me, a stark reminder of the thing I want most in my life.

The thing that isn't here.

I sighed and rolled over, finally crawling out of bed. As my feet hit the cold wood floor shivers struck, darting up my legs and leaving goose bumps in their wake. It felt strangely good, and I flexed my toes on the floor as I mulled over the sensation. These little moments were all that was left, reminding me that I was not quite as numb to the world as I was beginning to believe.

My shower was always scorching hot, as if it could wash away both my lingering dreams and the emptiness that barren pillow left daily. It's hard to wash away things that exist on your insides though, and I'm pretty sure the only thing my morning showers actually did was rinse away the grime. My skin was often left almost tender from my less-than-gentle scrubbing. Showers left my feelings, emotions, and memories all obstinately intact, despite my desire to cleanse myself of them.

I shouldn't look so clean and whole on the outside when on the inside I was slowly falling apart.

The man in the mirror was a relentless mockery of the truth.

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I'd been known to bury myself in work when things changed, to seek shelter in the familiar walls of my research. A comfort zone of my own inventions, it was literally a space of my own making, and I made my way to my lab every morning to keep the careful façade intact.

Every day I continued to do my work, pursuing the answers to research questions I'd thought up months ago or dreamed up that night, but I'd lost the inspiration in my work. I couldn't reach into the part of me where my enthusiasm was supposed to reside, because the gaping hole was consuming too much space within my mind.

It was like I'd subconsciously sealed off hopeful and happy feelings, afraid to reopen myself to the world around me. Having felt the harsh reality of betrayal before, of having the world I knew turn its back on me, I went into survival mode. I donned a smokescreen of a smile for the world, hiding behind my characteristic cheekiness and wit that now required all of my daily emotional energy to uphold.

Where once I would have spent the night in my lab when I was restless, I now couldn't work up the motivation to go in there after the sun went down. On nights when I couldn't sleep, which happened more often as the days passed, I generally made myself some tea and went to sit on the porch while I waited for mental fatigue and emotional exhaustion to drive me to sleep.

Subconsciously, though, I think I was waiting for him to come back to me.

Many nights had passed, proving the futility of that fruitless hope, but it had become an engrained routine anyway. In the meantime, I'd taken to admiring the brilliance of the night sky.

I don't think I'd ever taken enough time to consider the sky. Even the completely overcast cloudy sky held so much pattern and texture, I found myself consumed by complexity. The starry nights were even more baffling, presenting an unknown beyond full of more questions and fewer answers.

I knew it was just a diversion, but I focused on any welcome, waking distraction to drive away the thoughts that always came back to me the minute I crawled into bed.

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It feels wrong, strange, to spend so much time alone. I'd gotten so used to the presence of the younger man that his absence was a fracture in my life even now. It's like the wall that I built to protect myself from other people had slowly begun to crumble without my notice, only to truly collapse after his departure.

He was so young that the immediate intensity of our relationship had scared him. He tried to assure me the day he'd left that he wasn't unhappy, just confused. That he wasn't even sure if he even liked guys, that he wasn't sure enough of who he was yet to commit himself fully to another person.

Either I'm old and out of touch, or was simply more desperate for company than him, because the thought had never even crossed my mind when we'd started down our mutual path.

It was my own fault it happened though, I'm not stupid enough to pretend it wasn't. It wasn't pure coincidence that mere days after I said I loved him that things had gone wrong.

I am well aware that my brain seldom stops; my endless observation and evaluation has always been both my strength and my weakness. In this case, I'd realized that love was the only logical reason for my behavior shift. It doesn't sound terribly romantic like that, but it was. It was like he'd left a giant piece of himself inside me, buried so deep that I couldn't remove it without damaging a part of myself. With a realization of that magnitude, it made little sense for me to keep it to myself.

Hindsight is a bitch.

I should have known it would be too much, too fast for someone who has been around for barely two decades.

I was, am, too much. I am complicated and overwhelming, and have never led my life down a straight a predictable path. I presented a giant unknown, and I should have known better than to push someone who is so determined to be in control.

He hadn't said as much in response at the time, or at least he'd tried to soften the edges of his reaction, but I understood the reality. I had pushed, too hard and too fast, and he had fled.

And now, I faced the reality of a seemingly endless series of days without him.

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