All I did was dream of youâŚ
AN: I am so sorry about this
The first time Luigi Mangione met her, it was 3:17 a.m. in a greasy spoon diner that smelled like burnt coffee and old grease. She was behind the counter, cursing at a jammed espresso machine like it had personally betrayed her. Hair falling out of a clip, sleeves pushed up, eyes tired but fierce. Heâd ducked in to get away from everythingâanother family dinner that felt like a board meeting, another night where the Mangione name sat on his chest like a weight he couldnât set down. She fixed the machine with a butter knife and pure spite, then slid a black coffee across the counter without asking. Their fingers brushed. That was all it took. Something in him cracked open and never closed right again.
Her name was Elena. She worked nights at the hospital, picked up extra shifts at the diner when she needed to pay rent, and scribbled half-poems on napkins when she thought no one was looking. She didnât know who he was at first, or if she did, she didnât care. With her, the noise in his head went quiet. No performances. No legacy. Just easy silence and the kind of laughter that made his shoulders drop for the first time in years.
They fell into something fast and reckless. Midnight drives with the windows down, her bare feet propped on the dash while city lights streaked past. Sheâd rest her hand on his thigh like it belonged there, and heâd feel the tension bleed out of him. They wasted hours in her tiny apartmentâeating cold takeout on the floor, talking until their voices went hoarse, then not talking at all as clothes hit the ground. With her it was effortless. He didnât have to think. He could just be. Pour a drink, pull her into his lap, and let the world disappear.
The best nights were the ones that ended at sunrise. Theyâd park up on the overlook, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her like he could hold the moment still. The sky would bleed soft pinks and golds across her face, and heâd look at her and feel seen in a way that terrified him. Everything he wanted to be lived in her eyesâsteady, open, enough. He never said it. He kissed her instead, slow and deep, like he could push the feeling into her skin and make it permanent.
But his life always came back. The family obligations. The late nights that turned into cancellations. The careful walls he kept up because letting her all the way in felt like handing her a target. Elena never yelled. She just started going quiet. Those sunrise mornings grew heavier. Sheâd trace the lines of his face like she was memorizing someone already leaving, and heâd pull her closer, desperate, bruising, pretending it wasnât ending.
The last night gutted him.
It rained hard. She stood in her kitchen wearing his hoodie, arms wrapped tight around herself, eyes red-rimmed but dry. âI canât keep doing this, Luigi. Iâm in love with you and youâre half here. I want all of you or I need you to let me go.â
He froze. The words he needed stuck in his throat like glass. Instead he crossed the room, cupped her face, and kissed her like a man drowning. They stumbled to her bed and held each other so tightly it hurtânails digging, breaths shaking, bodies moving like they could fuse together and solve everything. No words. Just skin and salt and the awful certainty that this was goodbye. In the gray morning he dressed while she watched from the doorway, silent. He kissed her forehead before he left, and she didnât stop him.
That was twenty-three days ago.
Now Luigi sat on the floor of his too-empty apartment, back against the wall, legs stretched out like he couldnât be bothered to find the couch. The city hummed far below but it might as well have been another planet. He hadnât slept more than an hour at a time since that morning. Every time he closed his eyes she was thereâlaughing in his passenger seat, warm and soft in his arms, looking at him like he was worth something real. The memories carved him open.
His chest physically ached. Not metaphoricallyâa deep, grinding pain behind his ribs that made it hard to draw full breaths. He kept pressing the heel of his hand against his sternum like he could push the hurt back down, but it only spread. He missed her in his bones. In his teeth. In the way his hands wouldnât stop trembling when he thought about the way she used to run her fingers through his hair.
He tortured himself wondering if she felt it too.
Was she lying awake right now in that tiny bed, sheets twisted around her legs, staring at the ceiling with the same empty hollow in her chest? Did she reach for the side he used to sleep on? Did she cry quiet, ugly tears into her pillow so her roommate wouldnât hear? He hoped she did. He hated himself for hoping it, but the alternativeâthat she was already healing, already forgetting the way their bodies fit, already moving onâfelt like dying.
God, the ease. He missed the ease so much it made him sick. With her he didnât have to be Luigi Mangione, heir to whatever the fuck his family expected. He could be the guy who made her laugh until she snorted. The guy who let her steal his hoodies and didnât complain. The guy who believed, for a few stolen hours, that he could be soft and still be wanted.
He replayed their last sunrise on loop. Her sleepy smile in the golden light. The way sheâd whispered his name like a secret. He wanted to crawl back there and live in that moment forever, even if it meant never moving forward. Anything to stop this constant tearing.
At 4:12 a.m. he stood up on shaky legs and paced the apartment like a caged animal. He stopped at the window, forehead against the glass, rain streaking down the other side. He imagined driving to her place right now. Imagined dropping to his knees in her hallway and beggingâactually beggingâfor her to take him as the mess he was. To stay. To let him stay. To try, even if his world tried to break them. The fantasy burned so bright it hurt. But fear chained him in place. Fear that heâd ruin her. Fear that if he laid everything bare, sheâd finally see how broken he really was and walk away for good. So he stayed trapped in the apartment, bleeding out in slow motion.
âDonât go,â he whispered to the dark, voice shredded and small. âPlease, Elena⌠Iâm so fucking lost without you. Donât go.â
The words dissolved. No answer. Just the rain and the crushing weight of everything unsaid.
Somewhere across the city he prayed she was breaking tooâcurled up small, whispering his name like a curse and a prayer, body aching with the same merciless need. Two people who had found something rare and terrifying, now ripping themselves apart because neither could bridge the distance without risking everything. The yearning lived in him like a second, diseased heartbeat. Constant. Agonizing. Deep in his gut, twisting and pulling until he folded over, arms wrapped around his middle like he could hold himself together. He didnât know how much longer he could survive it. He only knew he didnât want to. Not if it meant living without the one person who made him feel like sunrise was something he could keep.