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It was over.
His body, cold as winter stone, now rested beneath the earth. Dennis had always found it strange how humans bury one another, as if the body beneath the soil remains there, waiting eternally. People visit graves and speak in hushed voices, believing they are still being heard. But they are not. They cannot be.
Since the beginning of existence, humanity has always been fragile, helpless, and miserable. Humans were never created to endure the disappearance of those they loved and cared for. Perhaps that is why religions like Islam and Christianity hold such power over people. They promise that this world is only temporary, a narrow bridge leading toward something eternal.
They told people that if they lived as obedient and virtuous souls during this brief lifetime, they would reunite in someplace kinder, someplace peaceful.
And so, people survive by believing.
Like everyone else, Dennis chose to pray for him. He chose to imagine him somewhere warm, somewhere untouched by pain, because the alternative, the possibility that he was simply gone, vanished without leaving any trace behind, was unbearable. Everything felt heavy, as though an invisible hand had wrapped around his throat, pulling him downward, trying to bury Dennis beside him. He could not breathe.
Another panic attack.
Even after Dennis met Robby, they never fully disappeared. But Robby made them easier to survive. He would sit there with Dennis through the worst of them, anchoring him with quiet words and steady hands until the terror loosened its grip. With Robby, life became manageable again. Until Robby was taken from him. No, until Robby's pain was so unbearable that he chose to leave Dennis behind. And now it had returned.
The sound of wind moving through ancient trees. The quiet murmurs of strangers praying for mothers, siblings, lovers. The dull sound of shovels breaking earth. All of it collided violently inside his head. He was never afraid of graveyards, yet the towering trees surrounding them always unsettled him. They had stood there for decades, feeding silently on death itself. Just like the flowers blooming over graves, beautiful things born from decay. Symbols of hope.
And yet hope felt like the last thing a cemetery should ever offer.
A new life.
A new beginning.
No place built upon loss should be capable of carrying such warmth. Dennis had lost people before. Many of them. But they were not the reason Dennis himself found joy in living, they were not who repeated it enough to make Dennis believe he was worthy of love.
He had not returned home since the day Robby was hospitalized. Their home. He couldn't, because everything inside the apartment remained painfully ordinary. The coffee mugs they left on the table two days ago, Robby's headphones that were abandoned on the desk because he forgot to take them in his morning rush, the brown leather jacket he had thrown onto the couch after realizing how warm the weather was outside, the pack of spaghetti waiting on the counter for dinner that Dennis was gonna make for Robby that evening.
Ordinary objects, ordinary moments, ordinary day. But nothing about those days was ordinary anymore. Living without him should not have felt this easy. He had existed beside Dennis in his worst days, in his best days, in every minute of his life since they met. Of course he knew he would eventually adapt to the emptiness, but not this quickly. If he returned home, time would begin moving again. Dust would settle. Memories would soften. And eventually, parts of Robby would disappear, remaining merely as a faint memory of someone Dennis has shared his life with once. He could not allow that.
This was not the ending that Robby deserved. He did not deserve to become a fading memory. Dennis rose slowly from the bench, unsure how long he had been sitting there. The wind shook through his body, but it no longer mattered.He only wanted one thing, one impossible thing: To close his eyes and open them again beside Robby. To wake up to one of their slow mornings, to wake up to sounds of Robby preparing him breakfast. But life did not reverse itself for grieving people. They had already taken their final photograph together, spoken their final conversation, shared their final embrace. Dennis didn't realize they would be the last. And the worst part was that Robby knew it all along. He knew it when Dennis bought that pasta to prepare him dinner, he knew it when Dennis was planning their 4th year anniversary, he fucking knew it would be the last time they saw each other when Dennis said 'See you later' before going to Trinity's.
He stood in front of the apartment door for what felt like forever. All he had to do was place the key into the lock, yet he couldn't move. Not yet. Sliding down against the door, he collapsed onto the floor and tried desperately to convince himself that none of this was real, convince himself that when he entered, Robby would be asleep. That had to be it. At least it should have been.
Why was God doing this to him? Has he failed the God somehow? Was it because he didn't contunie his career with theology? Was it because of his sexuality? His gentle sin? He silently begged God to just say something, but he never did. Thinking about it felt like drowning from the inside out. He ripped off the cross necklace he had been wearing while praying for Robby, and he threw it away. There was no point in praying to a ''God'' that never listened to his prayers and continued to make him suffer like he hasn't suffered enough already. During his marriage with Robby, he never completely stopped believing in God. Even though Robby himself wasn't a believer, he always encouraged Dennis to go to church, because Dennis having something to hold onto comforted him somehow. Perhaps he had wanted Dennis to have something to lean on after he was gone.
Robby was not perfect. No one was. And Dennis couldn't say that he was the kind of person who “spread happiness everywhere he went,” nor someone overflowing with light and laughter like the characters in novels or films were. He was complex and toxic at times, yet he was just a human like everyone else. He never understood why humanity romanticized loss like that. A person dies, and suddenly everyone speaks of them as if they had been an angel. But there was no pure goodness and no pure evil.
Everybody just tried to exist in their own way.
Dennis finally stood, and pulled the key from his pocket and opened the door. And then Dennis realized something: Avoiding home because he feared he would forget Robby meant that somewhere deep inside Dennis, he believed forgetting him was possible. But it was not, and it never would be.
One week earlier, Dennis finished his residency at PTMC and went to a job interview with the HR. He had done it, he was retained by the hospital as an Attending Physician in the ED. They were supposed to share the same title as each other, teach the med students together, and begin the new era of their lives side by side. That future was real once, but not anymore, not since Dennis held Robby's lifeless hand and felt no pulse.
For four years, Robby did everything he could for Dennis, and then he left. In five days, he would have to return to the hospital. In five days, the world would continue exactly as it always had, and it was the cruelest part of all.
It was all his fault. He should've known better, he should've realized it before it was too late, but he couldn't. He failed Robby just like Robby failed Langdon, but this one was much worse. Robby was at least able to pull Langdon back from the edge, but Dennis couldn't manage to do the same for him. He couldn't stop Robby, he didn't even have the chance to try. He couldn't win a game he didn't know he was playing.
Slowly, carefully observing everything around him, he made his way to the bedroom. The tears were gone now, his mind was made up.
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The following day, the morning shift at The Pitt were met with another familiar face lying in a hospital bed, one they knew very well.
