My echo is the only voice coming back

[Ryland Ren]

When Ryland imagined moving into his new apartment, he imagined that he was starting a new chapter in his life. It was this beautiful, new fresh start. He would open his doors and windows to a new street. His neighbors would be new. School was across the street and he could just leave home and be there in the blink of an eye.

Now he hated the place. It felt too small and lonesome. The walls were still white and bare, devoid of any pictures, any decorations. There were some boxes that had yet to be unpacked. School books littered the coffee table, pages and notebooks and pens from when he'd studied a few evenings ago.

And the bottles of alcohol.

After the bar, he came home to keep the party going. All he wanted to do was drown his thoughts and his feelings. It hurt to think. It hurt to feel. Either way he, he was a bastard. He was the bastard who cheated on his boyfriend. Then he was the asshole who wouldn't accept the feelings of the ex he cheated with. He missed both of them. Loved both of them. Was it such a crime to love more than one person?

He didn't want to love anybody right now. Not anymore. They were both healing, moving on. Ry thought he was, too. It was just that... when he needed somebody to reach out to, there was nobody. His friends were too busy and wrapped up in their own lives. And the person he normally would have reached out to--his boyfriend--didn't want to talk to him... Understandable.

And where was he? The one who tempted him? The one who loved him and left him, just like he did so many times before? With his new boyfriend. They seemed happy together. Ry sat up from the couch where he'd been lying and he reached clumsily for one of the bottles of alcohol. Shook it. Empty. He let it drop to the floor with a thump before falling back against the couch.

Inside, he just felt so empty, like there was nothing left to give anybody. He didn't like it, that hollow feeling, as if nothing would ever touch him emotionally again. It was a far cry from the pain from earlier. It was like he'd transcended the pain and just fallen into some black hole of emotion.

He pressed a couch pillow to his face, eyes closed. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep...