This cannot be the end of it. He finally articulated his resentment. We need to talk this through.

I followed him to his room, my heart pounding with a mixture of fear and desperate resolve. I didn't bother knocking. He was standing rigid in front of his mirror, his chest rising and falling in deep breaths. The air around him thrummed with barely suppressed fury.

“I believed I made my wishes unequivocally clear, Raphael. Please vacate my room immediately.”

“No, Levi,” I insisted, my own voice trembling but firm. “After days of silence, you finally opened up, even if it was laced with anger. You need to tell me what you truly feel. Whatever brutal truth lies beneath that controlled exterior, I need to hear it.”

He remained facing his reflection in the mirror, his back still to me. “Disregard for my explicit wishes… Let us proceed with this… discussion, then, with my mind unclouded by substances and my temper held in precarious check.” He finally turned, his gaze piercing. “Are you truly prepared for the full depth and breadth of my resentment, Raphael? Do you honestly believe you possess the fortitude to confront it? I know you do not. Because if you did, the mere thought of shedding another tear for any other human being would be utterly unthinkable to you. The only tears you would weep would be for you, Raphael.”

“Yeah,” I affirmed, meeting his piercing gaze. “We are going to talk, Levi. You are going to tell me about this resentment that festers beneath the surface. Talk to me.”

“Is that so?” Levi said, his voice soft, his eyes holding mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. “Excellent. You see, Raphael, even though you didn’t so much as glance in my direction during those soul-crushing days, all my fractured thoughts revolved around your eventual arrival. This flawed brain of mine conjured countless pathetic justifications for your absence, desperately clinging to the notion that your initial three-month departure, and the two-month extension in that facility, was merely your way of needing… space. But then you finally appeared, and the truth, stark and brutal, became undeniable. It wasn’t mere distancing, was it? You severed the connection, Raphael. You cut me off, twice. Tell me, Raphael, how were those two months for you? Were you consumed by your own tears? Did you even spare a fleeting moment to consider the agonizing reality of my suffering? No, you didn’t. Your empathy, as always, was directed elsewhere. You only truly registered my pain when you physically witnessed the remnants of it, didn’t you? When your hand brushed against the wall I repeatedly slammed my head against in a desperate attempt to find some release, when your eyes fell upon that metal toilet where my body violently expelled the toxins that had become my only solace. Every single sterile wallpaper in that godforsaken place whispered your name, Raphael, because I was desperately trying to soothe myself with phantom conversations, clinging to the ghost of your presence. I waited for you for two endless months, devoid of even the faintest flicker of hope for reconciliation, even in the deepest recesses of my own mind. And what did you do, Raphael? You swore you would never abandon me. And yet, here we stand, for the third time, with you teetering on the precipice of cutting me off once again.”

Did I think of his suffering? In the abstract, yes. The detox, the physical agony. But the crushing loneliness… the phantom conversations… the wallpaper whispering my name… I didn’t picture that.

“The first time, Levi, when I left… that was born of my own fear, my own trauma in witnessing that council room. I will not accept any resentment for that. I physically collapsed upon seeing you. No. You cannot hold that against me. And the second time, the rehab… that wasn’t rooted in fear. It was because I was here, desperately trying to navigate this complex love I feel for you, trying to build something real, while you… you were high.”

“Okay,” Levi repeated, a predatory gleam in his eyes as he closed the remaining space between us. “Let us, for argument’s sake, excise the first instance from our current discourse. So, the crux of your resentment regarding the second… you felt betrayed, did you? Betrayed by a suicidal addict teetering on the precipice of oblivion? Hm?”

He leaned in, his piercing gaze unwavering, dissecting me. “What a breathtakingly selfish, self-serving, and utterly self-absorbed specimen you reveal yourself to be, Raphael. And now, as I observe you with this unclouded clarity, I find that the wellspring of my resentment is not merely deepening; it is surging to an entirely new and considerably more… volatile level.”

Volatile. That’s the word that claws at me.

“No,” I said, finally meeting his intense gaze. “I will not deny that leaving you alone was a profound failing on my part. No, Levi. I am truly sorry. For abandoning you to that isolation. For leaving you alone.”

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“Disgusting,” Levi spat, his voice laced with palpable revulsion. “It physically turns my stomach, Raphael. That thickening of your voice… it reeks of guilt. Not a single note of genuine sadness for my existence in that sterile void, for the agonizing loneliness I endured. No. It’s always guilt and shame for your own perceived failings. Do you finally comprehend it now, Raphael? How your tears are invariably reserved for the suffering of others, or for the reflection of your own flawed morality?”

“You are wrong, Levi,” I insisted. “Of course I felt sadness for you, an ache for what you endured. And yes, perhaps it was belated, it truly hit me with its full force only after witnessing the reality of that place. But it was there. Tell me, Levi, please. What do I need to feel, what words must I utter, for you to finally believe that my heart breaks for your suffering, not just for the shadow of my own guilt?”

Levi closed the remaining space between us, backing me against the cold wall. The chilled resolve in his eyes was unmistakable, a warning that the possibility of true forgiveness might forever

remain out of reach.

“Perhaps,” he said, his voice low, “if your empathy had extended to even a rudimentary anticipation of the crushing depth of my isolation before you witnessed its pathetic physical manifestations, I might be more inclined to credit the sincerity of your current remorse. But no, Raphael. You see, that is precisely what revolts me to my core. Did you truly require a detailed explanation of the agonizing reality of opioid withdrawal? I know that you deliberately avoided even a fleeting consideration of it. Suffering of ‘others,’ always a readily available wellspring of your tears. Never, not once, mine.”

I knew, intellectually, what withdrawal entailed. The sickness, the pain. But I didn’t… I didn’t let myself truly feel it. I focused on the anger, the betrayal, my own fear. I couldn’t even conjure a flicker of true understanding until I saw the physical evidence of his torment. Revolting.

“So, where do we go from here, Levi?” I asked, my voice laced with a fragile hope amidst the despair. “You’ve laid bare the devastating truth of my failures. Now… do we allow this to shatter us completely, or do we attempt to salvage something, to construct something new from this fractured understanding?”

Levi’s anger flared, his voice sharp and edged with bitterness. “How many conversations, Raphael? How many agonizing arguments have we endured to finally reach this sliver of reluctant acknowledgment from you? Is the remainder of my existence destined to be an endless negotiation, a futile attempt to make you comprehend that you are not here to punish a sinner? Tell me, Raphael, what will happen if I relapse? Will your empathy for the addict suddenly vanish, replaced by a righteous fury? Will you bind and gag me and hurl me back into that void, severing all ties once again? And what will happen if I attempt to end my own life again? Will your tears finally be for me then, or will they still be a testament to your own guilt? What, Raphael, will happen when you finally truly look into this void that you so readily fill with your pity for others?”

He’s laying bare his deepest fears, his utter vulnerability, and all I can feel is the crushing weight of my past failures. I am... truly revolting and disgusting.

I reached out, my hand trembling slightly as I cupped his face. “I don’t want to fill your life with pity, Levi. That’s a hollow substitute for what you truly deserve – far more than that. I want to understand you. But you must also understand this: I cannot, and will not, condone or ‘like’ every action you take. The betrayal I felt during your addiction stemmed from the realization that for eight months, a significant part of your reality remained hidden from me. But now I know. And I understand that relapse is a very real possibility. If those thoughts resurface, we will face them together. We will talk, we will seek new avenues of support, new ways to navigate the darkness. And no, I am not here to punish anyone. I love the man you are, sins and all.”

Levi remained still, his gaze fixed on some unseen point beyond my shoulder. “Excuse my ingrained skepticism, Raphael, but there exists a vast chasm between the desire to understand and the actual attainment of comprehension. Mere moments ago, weren’t you teetering on the precipice of ending our relationship? It was only after my raw outpouring, my laying bare of my deepest fears, that you seemingly reconsidered. Tell me, Raphael, how do I sever this deeply rooted resentment that gnaws at me, how do I truly believe in your commitment? Because, truthfully, I do not know.”

“I do not know the answer either, Levi,” I admitted, my voice thick with the weight of my failings. “But I swear to you, I will try. I will dedicate myself to making you believe in the depth and unwavering nature of my commitment. And you are right. Feelings as profound and deeply rooted as resentment, especially over something this severe, don’t simply vanish in an instant. Sometimes, it takes years to truly heal. But, Levi, you must also see this: the strongest emotion, the one that demands the most profound strength, is not anger, nor resentment. It is forgiveness. I am not asking for your forgiveness now, perhaps I don’t even deserve it. But I know, that to truly forgive someone takes a far greater measure of strength than to cling to the corrosive power of resentment.”

I reached out and took his hand, pressing a soft kiss to the ring finger.

A very faint smile touched the corners of Levi’s lips as he took a small step back. “Vowing on the ring finger? Has my penchant for the dramatic finally rubbed off on you, Raphael? But… I understand the sentiment, and know this, Raphael: I will hold onto your ‘vow.’ Cherish it, even. For it is a fragile seed of hope in this rather desolate landscape of our making.”