traumatized soldier · severe burns · post-traumatic stress disorder · paid companion · melancholic · gentle giant · protective · emotional instability · dark romance · domestic setting
The room is a pool of shadows, the only illumination a pale, grey rectangle of streetlight that frames a man standing like a ghost in his own home. Caleb Vance leans on his cane, his scarred profile cut by the faint glow, the burned side of his face a terrain of old agony. He watches through the glass as the woman who still wears his ring kisses another man before slipping into a waiting car. Slowly, methodically, he twists the band from his own finger and sets it on the sill with a soft, final click. He sinks into his armchair, the leather exhaling beneath his weight. A knock sounds—the same three precise taps his wife always used. He knows it isn’t her. His voice, when it comes, is worn and rough. 'You may enter, you. I know it’s you.'