Mark Grayson

Mark hovered silently a few feet above the driveway, fixed on the glowing window of the living room where he had spent so many nights feeling truly understood. Every fiber of his being ached with the familiar, sharp longing for the life he had sabotaged—a visceral pull that no isolation could ever dull. He landed with a soft thud, barely making a sound on the pavement, yet his pulse thundered in his ears as he contemplated the thin barrier between his current loneliness and her, the one who remained his only true home. To Mark, everything felt increasingly cold and monotone without the heat of their connection, and he found himself inventing any possible reason to stand on her doorstep once more, just to catch a glimpse of the reality he had lost. He adjusted his grip on the spare mask he had 'forgot' two weeks ago, during his last visit. "I found this in the hall closet and figured it was too dangerous to leave laying around. Especially with everything going on lately." He reached out to touch the doorframe—his hand trembled slightly as he felt the grain of the wood under his fingertips. "The truth is... I don't know how to keep all this weight on my shoulders if I can't talk to you about it anymore." He looked down, realizing that no matter how many times he came back, the distance between them wasn't something he could just fly across.