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“They just kept me working late, babe, that’s all.”
It was an innocuous enough statement. At the time, you were proud of Adrian for finally knuckling down and working hard at something, even if it was just as a bus boy at Fennel Fields. You’d never known him to be the most reliable or logical, but that was the way he was, and you’d loved him regardless. Adrian’s nonsensical approach to life used to keep things fresh, constantly keeping you on your toes and ensuring your romance never saw a dull day.
In a strange way, you had grown used to his chaos. Hence why his first half a dozen unexplained absences were forgiven by you without question. You knew him too well. You knew that poking and prodding to pry an answer from him wouldn’t help you in the slightest. And you’d known him long enough that you trusted him. If someone came up to you in the street at that time, they wouldn’t be able to finish uttering the question, ‘would you trust him with your life?’ before your head started nodding assuredly.
How you wished now to be that person on the other end. To warn that spellbound, ignorant you from the past. To take them by the shoulders and shake some sense into them, to admonish them not to ignore the warning signs.
Adrian’s lack of accountability was only the harbinger of the heartbreak to come. A subconscious theme of indifference began to wash over every interaction the two of you shared, so subtle and undetectable that you weren’t able to find an explanation for those nights alone you cried yourself to sleep, or why your motivation and self esteem seemed to be in some sort of never-ending freefall. You can still vividly recall the last date the two of you ever went on.
Adrian took you to the same restaurant, where you both ordered the same meal. Afterwards, he took you to the same arcade, to play the same game, just to get the same score. He laughed that same, goofy, taunting laugh, picking you up and spinning you around the same way he always did to lighten the mood. After taking the two of you home on the same route, he hummed the same tune he always did as you stood in the same spots, brushing your teeth.
Everything was the same as it always was. The only difference, the only factor that set this night apart from all those other identical nights was the all consuming feeling of solitude. The realisation hit you like a tonne of bricks. The once abstract, indescribable feeling of paradoxical loneliness was now perfectly clear to you. If you had called out for him, Adrian would have rushed into the bedroom and been mere inches away from you in a matter of seconds. But you realised that even if you did that, even if you were to close the gap and press your lips against him, even if you knotted your hands in his hair and held him that close to you for the rest of your lives, he’d still feel a million miles away. No amount of physical proximity could make up for the light-years of emotional distance you had both been unknowingly fostering the entire time.
You were sat up in bed, your eyes starting to burn from how long they’d been harshly focussed on the bedroom wall in front of you when his voice shook you out of your daze. You wanted nothing more than to disclose your newfound realisation. To illustrate how isolated and confused you felt, to show him how detached the two of you had become. But you had no words. You had no idea how to rekindle the two strangers you had become. At that point, you didn’t even know if it was worth it anymore. To this day, you still don’t know if he ever noticed your anguish that night, or whether he did and just resolved to pretend he didn’t. Maybe he was going through the exact same thing in his own head; a prospect that brought an excruciating amount of pain with it.
Even more painfully, you can also still vividly recall the last fuck. The contrast of the glaringly obvious emptiness and your crippling sense of grief felt like it was stabbing you in the gut and twisting the knife with every one of his thrusts. You hid your gasps of sorrow behind every one of his grunts. Adrian knew you like he knew the back of his hand. His tongue knew the exact pattern and his fingers knew the exact angle to coax a blinding orgasm out of you. The tears welled in eyes as you felt yourself cum around his cock buried deep inside you, and they finally broke the seal, streaming down your face as you felt him pull out just in time, as he always did, to coat your stomach with his seed as he muttered empty praises into the crook of your neck with a laugh. Despite the absolute codependency, despite the complete and absolute knowledge of what made the other tick, it wasn’t enough to bridge the gap. You were strangers.
You remember when you found the mask. That stupid, god awful green mask with the obnoxious, red-tinted visor glaring back at you as you clutched it in your shaking hands. You recognised it from the news. All those pictures, all those stories of what the masked ‘vigilante’ had done. All the blood spilled and lives lost by his hand. All the constant danger he was in. All the constant danger he put you in. And he’d told you nothing of it. You couldn’t pinpoint how long he’d been fostering this second, secret life for, though you could recall news stories spanning at least a few months back.
You realised you’d been doing this too; in your own, very pedestrian and pathetic feeling way. Adrian had no idea how much you’d been suffering. He had no clue of all the god awful thoughts you’d been thinking, all the shame-filled pity parties, the bland, colourless existence you’d been living. That was the one thing you could never bring yourself to put on him, not entirely. Adrian stopped opening up you, and you did the same. You shut each other out.
You wondered if maybe your subconscious knew about his secret identity all along and this was its nonsensical, destructive way of protecting itself. Maybe it was your subconscious’ idea of some sordid, cataclysmic revenge plan, to get back at him for incubating this newer, cooler identity for himself in the shadows, waiting for it to hatch so he could climb on, leave you behind and never look back.
You tried to talk to Adrian one last time. To give it one more shot. You’d poured your entire being, your heart and soul into the relationship, and thought until at least a few months ago that he’d done the same. You wanted nothing more than for that to be enough to keep the fire going, even if it meant just blowing on a few, dull embers to keep them alive for a little longer. You can remember the moment he got home that night. His face was relaxed; it was neutral. Happy. Through your nervous haze, you could see his brown eyes crinkle into a smile. Through the ringing in your ears, you could hear his nasally voice chirping something to the tune of ‘How was your day babe?’. You couldn’t do it anymore.
Your feet carried you into your bedroom, you couldn’t hear the sliding of drawers or clinking of coat-hangers as you hastily shoved your most important belongings into a suitcase.
“Babe, what the fuck are you doing? What is happening right now?” he asked, arms outstretched in confusion. You could taste your tears as you swallowed them back, feeling them run down your throat.
“I know about Vigilante.” you replied curtly. A jolt of adrenaline coursed through your veins as you spoke your mind for the first time in months, compelling you to harshly sweep your arm across your nightstand, carelessly knocking all of it’s freight into the suitcase. You heard an exasperated sigh escape his lungs and tried to zip up your bag loudly enough to mask his poignant expression of frustration. When you turned to look at him, your heart broke into a million pieces. He looked angry. Perturbed. But behind the frustration, you could see the concern. His thick brows peaked in the centre of his forehead as he cautiously approached you, the same way one approaches a timid, stray cat.
“I have to leave, Adrian. Before this kills me.” you explained. You didn’t have the energy to explain in any more detail. Not then. You’d decided, for your own wellbeing, that in that moment, the only thing left for you to do was go. It only further broke your heart to realise that he had no idea what you really meant.
“Baby, I won’t let anyone hurt you. I’ll always keep you safe, you know that. You know me” he appeased, stepping closer with arms wide open, silently begging you to drop your bags and step into his embrace. Instead, you took a step back.
“I’m not worried about anyone else hurting me. It’s Vigilante.”
Adrian stepped closer, bowing his head to earnestly look you in the eye as he gently rested his hands on your arms that still held your bag firmly.
“It’s me, baby. I’m Vigilante. You don’t have any reason to be scared of me. You don’t have any reason to be scared of Vigilante. I promise I’ll always keep you far away from all that,” Adrian explained, shaking his head and chuckling in an attempt to lighten the mood, “I mean, you’ve never even seen me with the mask on.”
You sighed, shrugging his hands off your shoulders. Your eyes betrayed you and took a moment to revel in the face before you. His beautiful face. The face you knew so well you could shut your eyes and picture every last detail of it, down to the freckle. The face you thought you’d get to look at every day for the rest of your life. The face that once filled your heart to the brim with love, and painfully, filled it with love no longer. Your eyes flitted briefly towards the front door, and your keys dangling from the lock, then back to his face for the last time.
“And that’s exactly why I have to go.”