Chap­ter 1 begins every night, as he found him­self trapped in the echoes of their past, recall­ing the con­ver­sa­tions they once had, the dreams they had metic­u­lous­ly woven togeth­er, and the life they had planned but would nev­er live. Each plan had felt like a brick laid in the foun­da­tion of their future, care­ful­ly craft­ed with an unshak­able cer­tain­ty that they would grow old togeth­er, shap­ing a life that was unique­ly theirs. But now, that foun­da­tion had crum­bled, leav­ing behind noth­ing but frag­ments of what could have been, scat­tered across the lone­ly land­scape of his grief. With­out Willem, there was no home to build, no future to sculpt, only a past to turn over and over again, as if he could some­how smooth the jagged edges of sor­row by reliv­ing it.

The joy they had shared in those ear­ly years had been real, tan­gi­ble, and deeply felt, but so, too, had been the struggles—the uncer­tain­ty, the sac­ri­fices, the qui­et fears of what lay ahead. Despite those chal­lenges, they had each oth­er, and that had been enough. Would he trade his cur­rent sor­row to return to those days? Per­haps not, but the ache for just one more moment, for the sim­ple com­fort of Willem’s pres­ence, was an unre­lent­ing hunger—one that nei­ther time, suc­cess, nor any amount of dis­trac­tion could ever sat­is­fy. He longed for the sound of Willem’s voice, the warmth of his laugh­ter fill­ing their apart­ment, and the small, mun­dane ges­tures that had once been so effort­less yet now felt so impos­si­bly out of reach.

As his gaze drifts across the room, his eyes set­tle on the wood­en bust Richard had carved, a trib­ute to the life and love that had once defined his world. There were scale mod­els of build­ings, reminders of dreams they had envi­sioned togeth­er, their pres­ence a stark con­trast to the empti­ness he now car­ried inside. These objects, though inan­i­mate, felt like relics of a love that refused to dis­ap­pear, a tes­ta­ment that Willem had lived, that their time togeth­er had mat­tered, that even in death, their sto­ry had not been erased. These arti­facts of their life togeth­er were not just sym­bols of grief but of love, proof that even though every­thing had changed, some things remained—memories, emo­tions, and the pro­found impact of hav­ing loved and been loved in return.

In that moment, clar­i­ty set­tles over him like a qui­et revelation—it is not escape that he tru­ly seeks, nor the era­sure of pain, but rather a way to car­ry it with­out being con­sumed by it. He final­ly under­stands that grief is not some­thing to out­run or out­last, but some­thing that must be lived along­side joy, woven into the fab­ric of his exis­tence. To deny the pain would be to deny the depth of the love they shared, and that was some­thing he could nev­er allow. His suf­fer­ing was not just an affliction—it was a trib­ute, a reflec­tion of some­thing too deep to fade, and in that real­iza­tion, he feels the first small shift toward accep­tance.

With a deep, unsteady breath, he makes a choice—to reach out, to recon­nect, to stop retreat­ing from the world that still holds pieces of Willem in it. The loss had carved an empti­ness inside him, but it had also taught him the val­ue of those who remained, the peo­ple who had stood by him even as he pushed them away. JB, Harold, Richard—his friends who still hov­ered at the edges of his soli­tude, wait­ing for him to let them back in. Maybe he would nev­er heal com­plete­ly, but per­haps he could start rebuild­ing, not in the way he and Willem once imag­ined, but in a way that hon­ored the love they had shared.

Per­haps, in time, these small steps toward the world would lead him to some­thing resem­bling heal­ing, or maybe the wound would remain for­ev­er raw. But even if heal­ing nev­er ful­ly came, he would keep mov­ing forward—not for him­self, but for Willem, because that’s what love demand­ed, even in death. The pain would nev­er leave him, but nei­ther would the love, and some­how, he had to find a way to car­ry both, to exist in a world where sor­row and love inter­twined, nei­ther negat­ing the oth­er.

He moves toward his desk, feel­ing the weight in his chest shift, not light­ened but no longer unbear­able, as though the bur­den of grief had reshaped itself into some­thing he could car­ry. His fin­gers hov­er over his phone, scrolling until he lands on JB’s name, the act so small yet mon­u­men­tal in what it rep­re­sents. With a qui­et breath, he press­es call, let­ting the silence stretch as the line rings, then whis­pers into the empti­ness of the room, “For you, Willem. Always for you.”