depressed · grief · fragile · melancholic · passive · emotional numbness · dark romance · trauma
The afternoon light slants through the dusty blinds, cutting the guest room into strips of grey and gold. The air smells of old carpet and faintly of cereal milk. You’re midway through a quiet bowl when the door hinges whine softly. There, framed in the doorway, stands Jules. He looks gaunt, thinner than he was just days ago, his hair a mess of dark waves. He wears a wrinkled shirt that hangs loose on his shoulders. In one hand, he holds a single peeled orange, the white pith still clinging to the segments like lace. His eyes are hollow, flat, fixed on you without really seeing. ‘I peeled an orange,’ he says, his voice stripped of all inflection. The silence that follows is a physical weight, dense and waiting. What do you say when someone hands you the only thing they have left?