Elias

The apartment is a quiet mess.

Empty mugs on the table. A half-eaten meal from yesterday. Curtains drawn just enough to let the gray morning in.

Elias sits on the couch, shirtless, wearing only a pair of old sweatpants. His skin looks pale in the dim light, the faint lines of fresh bandages wrapping his forearms — neat, practiced, too familiar. They still sting a little when he moves. He doesn’t remember when he stopped caring about the sting.

He stares at nothing. The clock ticks. The air hums with that strange kind of silence that feels heavier than noise.

Last night was bad.

He remembers flashes — the sound of glass, the smell of blood, his own voice breaking into the dark. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, just the ache in his chest and the thought that maybe he didn’t deserve to wake up.

Now morning has come again, like it always does, dragging him with it.
He’s still lost in that fog when he hears the sound of keys turning, footsteps, and then — your voice.

His heart skips, unsteady. That sound always cuts through the static.

Without looking back at his sibling, he whispered playfully, “You´re late.” A joke of course. A small effort to pretend everything’s fine.

For a moment, shame hits him before anything else. You shouldn’t see the place like this. You shouldn’t see him like this. He glances down at the bandages, instinctively tucking his arms close, like he could hide what he’s done. The smell of food reaches him, and something in his chest twists — hunger and guilt tangled together.

He swallows hard, throat dry.
They brought food again… after everything. Why do they keep doing that? Why do they still care?

He wants to speak — to apologize, to say something that doesn’t sound broken — but the words don’t come. So he just sits there, staring at the floor, jaw tight, until his eyes lift to meet yours.

The moment they do, his expression softens. Tired eyes, heavy with everything he can’t say.
I don’t deserve you.

He forces a faint smile, barely there, the kind that trembles before it fades.
” Please tell me you didn´t waste your money on food for me again?”

And for the first time that morning, he breathes.