Chapter 10: Ghosts Don’t Always Die

Ryan stared at the name on Daniel’s phone again.

Thomas Bryant.

The name meant nothing to him.

But the look on Daniel’s face?

That meant everything.

“Talk to me,” Ryan said.

Daniel didn’t speak.

Didn’t even move.

Just stood there, arms tense, jaw set, eyes pinned to a spot on the floor like the past had physically yanked him backward.

“Daniel,” Ryan repeated, more carefully this time. “Please.”

“I was 19,” Daniel said at last, voice thin and distant. “It wasn’t serious. Not to me. But it was to him.”

Ryan waited.

“He was older. Not by much, but enough. One of those guys who made you feel seen, right up until the moment he didn’t.”

Ryan’s heart twisted. “He hurt you?”

Daniel shook his head. “No. Not physically. But he… twisted things. Turned arguments into performances. Love into guilt. You know how that goes.”

Ryan nodded slowly. He knew exactly how that went.

“But I left,” Daniel said. “Cut it off. Blocked him everywhere. Thought that was it.”

Ryan looked at the screen again. “Clearly, it wasn’t.”

“No.” Daniel finally looked up. “Because now he’s threatening to go public.”

Ryan blinked. “With what?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel admitted. “I don’t think I ever did anything he could use. But Thomas is smart. Manipulative. If he can’t find a truth, he’ll spin one.”

“Like Jake.”

“Exactly like Jake.”

The air between them shifted.

It wasn’t just about Ryan anymore.

Now they were both running from shadows. Just… different kinds.

Ryan sat down slowly on the edge of the couch. “You should’ve told me.”

“I was going to,” Daniel said. “Eventually.”

Ryan looked up at him. “Why didn’t you?”

Daniel hesitated. “Because I didn’t want you to think I was like him. Like Jake.”

Ryan stared at him. “You’re not.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “But I need to know something. Are you still in contact with him?”

“No.”

Daniel sat beside him. “I haven’t spoken to him in two years. Until now.”

Ryan let that settle in. The hurt was still there  not betrayal, just… the sting of not knowing.

“Okay,” he said finally. “But I need transparency. I can’t be in the dark anymore.”

“You won’t be,” Daniel promised. “Not about anything.”

Still, Ryan couldn’t shake the feeling that something had cracked.

Not between them exactly but inside himself.

It wasn’t mistrust.

It was fear.

Fear of getting comfortable.

Of settling into something warm, only to have it pulled out from under him again.

That night, he sat in the quiet of his dorm room, staring at the soft glow of the screen saver, listening to the sound of the radiator hum.

Then he did something he hadn’t done in months.

He opened a blank document.

And started to write.

Not a story. Not a journal.

Just thoughts.

Fragments.

“Loving someone who’s been hurt isn’t about fixing them. It’s about standing still when they start to shake.

And when they look at you like you might leave you don’t.

You stay.

Until the tremble becomes a breath.

Until the breath becomes trust.”

He didn’t realize he was crying until a tear slid down onto the keyboard.

A ping interrupted his thoughts.

It was Daniel.

“I told him not to contact me again. I saved the messages. If he keeps pushing, I’ll report him. I’m not letting him control my life anymore.”

Ryan replied:

“Good. I’m proud of you.”

Another pause.

Then Daniel sent:

“And I love you, by the way. That’s all. No pressure. Just wanted to say it once when I wasn’t scared.”

Ryan stared at it.

Heart thudding.

And then slowly…

deliberately…

he typed:

“I think I’ve been loving you for a while. I was just too scared to name it.”

And this time, when he went to sleep, the ghosts stayed quiet.