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Frank was gone.

He didn’t know when, he didn’t know how, he didn’t know why, but he wasn’t working at the hospital anymore. Dana broke the news to him; a welcome gift that hid a bomb, a toast with a glass of poison; Dana knew which hospital Frank had gone to, and Robby had nothing to prove it, but he knew it—the thought coiled in his mind like chains that refused to let go—because she shrugged when he asked her, because he knows her well enough to know she’s doing Frank a favor.

Maybe the problem wasn’t the departure, but that he didn’t tell him; maybe the problem wasn’t the departure, but that he didn’t say goodbye to him; maybe the problem wasn’t the leaving, but that Frank didn’t wait for Robby to decide whether to stay or not, that he took away his power to be jury, judge, and executioner, that he had supported him throughout almost his entire career and yet Frank left without letting him write the ending; he believed the months of rest would ease him, and they did—until he found out Frank was gone.

A month after the news, he could have sworn he saw his name among the patients during the shift change; a heat he thought he’d forgotten settled in his stomach—call it hope, call it rage—it had been a long time since he knew which of the two he’d decided to let go. Anxiety fought and won the battle in his mind, because if Langdon had been admitted, Jack would have told him; if Langdon had been admitted, it was because something serious had happened; if Langdon had been admitted, there was a chance he had relapsed—

“Frank Larsson.” Shen’s voice cut off all his thoughts, introducing the patient who seemed sedated, and continued talking about something Robby couldn’t hear clearly because of the ringing in his ears; he didn’t know if it was embarrassment or disappointment.

Maybe he needed to get his eyes checked.

Two months and a week later, he thought he saw him in the square near the hospital, reading a book on national history that made his heart tighten. He couldn’t see his face very well, but he had the same build, wearing a shirt that Robby could swear he’d seen him in outside of work—like a mirage to a thirsty man, like a VHS tape to a man who never learned to upgrade; the man on the bench even had the same hairstyle, but then he lowered the book and took off his sunglasses. Frank has never had brown eyes.

He’d had a couple more accidents that he never shared—shit, with the first ones his mouth never uttered a word to anyone, like secrets buried at the bottom of the sea—he wouldn’t confuse Langdon with some stranger at the bar, at least not anymore. He decided it was best to try to forget, that he would bury Frank along with the pathetic attempts by strangers to match him, because accidents would never compare to years of loyalty, and even after the argument they had, he would take that a thousand times over if it meant he could remember exactly what Frank’s voice sounded like.

Because he was getting old and his memory wasn’t what it used to be, because the more time passed, the more he forgot his scent, his skin; three months later he caught a similar scent in a library, but the librarian seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to resemble Langdon, or perhaps his mind couldn’t conjure anything to project him other than a faint whiff of a perfume he was beginning to forget; it seemed it only took a couple of months to forget a memory he never wanted to commit to memory when he’d had him by his side for years.

A year after his departure, Robby had given up trying to find him, and while he never really tried, what he sought were futile attempts at delusions he mistook for truth, illusions he believed could be compared to an image from an old camera—printed and left in the sun—where the colors faded and with them the intensity of the original moment, like a video that forgot its purpose and decided to erase the parts that mattered most, fading to black or cutting the audio. He never looked for Frank, because he believed that his memory of him would last more than a year, but a broken mind had leaks, and the memories seemed to have longed for freedom for years.

A year after his departure, Robby wondered if perhaps his image of Frank was nothing but an illusion, that the real Frank was the imposter, hiding somewhere, afraid that Robby would figure it out; or perhaps it was Robby who was hiding, unwilling to admit that he blamed his resentment, his anger, and his grief for his own cowardice; he was afraid of forgetting him, because he took for granted something he should have treasured, because he decided to let Frank go, and perhaps Frank, in his pain, decided to gradually erase his memory from Robby’s mind— that he chose to erase himself forever, and Robby could never undo it, condemned to live knowing that he had been stripped of authorship of his best and most failed work.

He didn’t know what the odds were, nor would he have bet on it, but when he heard his voice at a gala, he truly dismissed it, believing it was just another imitation his mind was trying to fit into the puzzle that was Frank; then he saw him smiling in the distance and realized it was him. Talking to people he’d never seen before, so at ease, so happy, letting another doctor put his hand on his shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

A year ago Frank had left; a year ago the memory he had of him began to fade; a year ago he’d been searching for him in shattered illusions; a year ago he refused to accept that he missed him, and two days ago he confessed it to Dana as if it were humanity’s greatest secret; the event began two hours ago, and only now is he beginning to realize that perhaps a year ago Frank was also forgetting him, and perhaps there was no delusion to follow—that someone decided to take him on as an apprentice, and that was the quickest way to fill any void Robby might have left behind.