The Man I Almost Lost by Romeo Alexander

I’ve been back to Arete enough to have a routine.


Private room. Good food. Someone willing in the evenings. It works. Most days. As long as I don’t think about the outlet I never fixed, or the fire, or the two people who deserved better than my excuses.

Then Isaac shows up.

Former escort. Done with sex. Done with men who use it to avoid feeling anything. He looks at me the first day like he’s seen my type before and found it mildly disappointing. He doesn’t say it out loud. He doesn’t have to.

I try the usual. He’s not interested.

But he keeps showing up. And the closer he gets, the less the routine holds. Three years of careful noise starts going quiet, and the grief I’ve been outrunning finds me every time he’s in the room. Because being near someone real makes all of it feel like what it always was. Filler.

I don’t deserve this. I know that.

He doesn’t agree.