The Weight of Unsaid Words

Brandon's POV The room was a swirling vortex of indistinct shapes and shadows, illuminated by a feeble, jaundiced light that fought a losing battle against the heavy, oppressive velvet curtains. Every breath I took felt shallow, scraping against a raw, parched throat, tasting faintly of the bitter scotch that had been my only companion for too many nights. Days and nights had long since ceased to hold meaning, blurring into an indistinguishable, agonizing smear of time. Meals, prepared with a mother’s worried hand, sat uneaten, their carefully arranged plates growing cold, then being silently removed. The relentless, insistent chime of my phone, signaling urgent calls from Thompson Corp, was a distant, annoying hum I easily ignored. My entire existence had contracted, shrinking to the suffocating confines of this bed, a private purgatory of regret and sickness. Lia. Her name was a fragile whisper, a desperate plea escaping my lips in the depths of my delirium, the sole tether in the ch