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“Tyler, I'm not going to sit here and watch you destroy yourself!” Jenna choked out, the words breaking apart under the weight of her tears. Her chest heaved violently, one trembling hand pressed against her mouth like she could physically force the sobs back down before they escaped. “I can’t do this anymore, Tyler. I can’t keep sitting back and pretending this is normal. You need to stop! You need to stop this!"
Tyler’s back hit the wall harder than he intended. The sound cracked through the downstairs studio and for a second neither of them moved. Then the anger drained out of him all at once, so suddenly it almost looked painful. His knees gave out beneath him and he slid down the wall slowly, shoulders dragging against the paint until he hit the floor.
Desolate. That was the only word for it, the only word for what he was feeling. The laptop he’d been clutching slipped from his hands onto the hardwood beside him with a dull clatter, screen still glowing against the darkness of the room. Half-finished lyrics stared back at him in blurry white lines, deadlines writtern on post it notes stucked on the lid of the laptop. Notifications of unanswered messages highlighted every corner on the screen. A calendar packed so tightly with obligations there wasn’t space left to breathe between them.
Jenna looked at it and felt something inside her twist violently, because even now, even here, at rock bottom, part of his attention still seemed tethered to it. Like if he looked away for too long, everything would collapse.
Tyler bent forward, forearms braced over his knees, fingers tangled into his hair so tightly Jenna thought he might rip it out at the root. His breathing had gone thin and uneven. Exhausted in the way that surpassed sleep deprivation and became something cellular. Something living in the bones.
“You think I don’t know that?” he whispered finally. The words were so quiet she almost didn’t hear them.
Jenna’s face crumpled, because she did know. She knew about the nights he stayed in the studio until sunrise and came to bed smelling like cold coffee and static electricity, too wired to sleep and too tired to function.
She knew about the untouched dinners left in the microwave, the way his hoodies hung looser around his frame now, the trembling hands, the dark half-moons beneath his eyes, the way he startled lately whenever she touched him unexpectedly, like his nervous system had been stretched so tight there was nothing left between functioning and falling apart.
But worse than all of it was the look in his eyes lately, like he was running from something invisible, like if he stopped moving for even one second, it would finally catch him.
“You’re scaring me,” Jenna said, and her voice shattered completely on the last word.
Tyler finally looked up at her then. And God, he looked terrified. Not of her, but of himself.
His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed red with exhaustion, tears gathering in the ducts despite how hard he was trying to hold them back. Tyler had always carried anxiety like a private war, silently, stubbornly, with gritted teeth and a forced smile, but this was different now. This looked less like anxiety and more like collapse. Like a building holding itself upright seconds before the foundation gave way.
“I’m trying,” he said, the sentence cracking in half. “Jen, I swear to God, I’m trying so hard.”
She believed him immediately, that was the unbearable part.
“This... this is my job. It’s what I love,” he said quietly, the words barely seeming to make it past his lips at all.
Tyler still wouldn’t look at her. His eyes stayed fixed on the opposite wall like there was something written there he needed to survive this conversation. The muscles in his jaw twitched hard enough for Jenna to see it from across the room. Every inch of him looked wound tight with exhaustion, fragile in the most dangerous kind of way. Like one more thing, one more argument, one more deadline, one more sleepless night, might finally snap whatever thread was still holding him together.
“I—” He swallowed harshly. “Why would you tell me to stop making music?”
His voice broke apart at the end, pitching high and raspy with disbelief.
And Jenna felt her heart crack straight down the middle. Because that wasn’t what she had said.
But it was what he had heard.
Not take a break. Not sleep. Not eat. Not please stop killing yourself slowly in front of me while pretending you’re fine.
To Tyler, it translated instantly into something far more terrifying: Give up the only thing that makes you who you are.
“No, baby—” Jenna took a step toward him immediately, panicked by the devastation on his face. “That’s not what I meant.”
Tyler laughed softly before she could continue, but there was no humor in it. It sounded hollow. Airless. He scrubbed both hands over his face, rough and frantic, and when they dropped again his eyes were glassy with tears he clearly hated having.
“You don’t get it,” he whispered.
The apartment had gone eerily quiet around them. Somewhere outside, a car horn echoed faintly through the city streets below, muffled by rain against the windows, but inside the room everything felt suspended. Heavy. Suffocating.
Tyler pulled one knee toward his chest, forearm draped over it as he stared downward at the floorboards now.
“When it’s bad,” he said slowly, voice uneven, “music is the only thing that makes my head quiet for a minute.”
Jenna stopped moving, because there it was. The truth.
Not the schedules. Not the label. Not the expectations or the tours or the pressure or the fans. Those things mattered, sure, but beneath all of it was this, Tyler clawing desperately for something that could silence his own mind long enough to breathe.
“I sit down to work and it’s like…” He exhaled shakily, struggling to explain something that clearly lived too deep inside him for language. “It’s like everything in me finally lines up correctly for a second. Like all the noise stops screaming over itself.”
His fingers trembled where they rested against his knee. “And if I stop…” His throat bobbed hard. “I don’t know what happens if I stop.”
Jenna’s eyes burned instantly with fresh tears.
Because suddenly she understood why he’d been driving himself into the ground with almost frantic desperation. Why every attempt to pull him away from work made him anxious instead of relieved. Why resting seemed to make him worse.
He wasn’t overworking because he didn’t care about himself. He was overworking because he was terrified of being alone with his own thoughts.
“Oh, Tyler…” she whispered.
He shook his head immediately like he regretted saying any of it. Vulnerability always seemed to hit him like exposure to open air, painful and instinctively avoided. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes hard enough to leave angry red marks against his skin.
“I know I look insane right now,” he muttered hoarsely. “I know I’m screwing everything up.”
“You are not screwing everything up.”
“I forgot it was Rosie's birthday yesterday, Jenna.” His voice sharpened suddenly, cracking with self-disgust. “I walked into the kitchen this morning and couldn’t remember if I’d eaten. My chest hurts all the time and I can’t sleep for more than like two hours without waking up feeling like something terrible’s about to happen.”
Jenna physically flinched, because he said it so casually. Like those things had become normal to him.
Tyler finally looked at her then, and the sheer exhaustion in his face was devastating. The kind that hollowed people out slowly over time.
“But if I stop working,” he whispered, eyes filling helplessly, “then all I can hear is me.”
Jenna’s breath caught painfully in her chest.
Slowly, like approaching something wounded enough to bite out of fear, she lowered herself onto her knees in front of him. The hardwood dug sharply into her skin, but she barely felt it. All she could focus on was Tyler sitting crumpled against the wall in front of her, arms wrapped tightly around himself like he was trying to physically hold all the broken pieces in place.
“Ty…” she whispered.
Her hand lifted instinctively toward his shoulder.
And Tyler flinched away before she could touch him.
It wasn’t dramatic, and thats was what made it hurt so much.
Just a quick recoil, a sharp tightening of his body, his shoulder twisting back against the wall on pure reflex, like his nervous system had reacted before his brain could stop it.
But Jenna felt it like a slap.
Tyler realized what he’d done immediately.
His face crumpled with horror.
“No—Jen, I—”
“It’s okay,” she said too quickly, even as her voice cracked apart.
But it wasn’t okay, not really. Because Tyler loved touch, Tyler was always touching her absentmindedly, hands finding her waist in crowded rooms, fingers brushing against hers while passing in the kitchen, pulling her into his chest half-asleep in the middle of the night like he needed the reassurance she was still there. Physical affection had always come naturally to him. So watching him pull away from her now, like even gentle contact overwhelmed him, made something cold spread through her stomach.
He’s burning out, actually burning out.
Tyler dragged a shaking hand down his face, breathing uneven again. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, staring at the floor. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
Jenna’s eyes flooded instantly. “You don’t have to apologize for being overwhelmed.”
“Yes, I do.” His voice came out sharper than intended, edged with panic. “Jesus, Jenna, look at me.”
She already was. That was the problem. She saw everything; the way his hands wouldn’t stop trembling no matter how tightly he clenched them. The faint purple shadows beneath his eyes that no amount of concealer could fully hide anymore. The weight he’d lost over the last few months that he insisted was “nothing.” The constant restlessness vibrating beneath his skin even now, like he physically did not remember how to relax anymore, and worst of all, the fear.
Tyler looked afraid all the time lately, not in huge obvious ways. In tiny ones, subtle ones. The kind people missed unless they loved someone enough to memorize them.
The way his breathing changed when his phone buzzed, the way he stared blankly at walls after particularly bad nights, the way he went quiet whenever someone suggested taking time off, the way exhaustion had started hollowing him out from the inside until Jenna sometimes barely recognized the man she loved beneath all the anxiety and pressure and self-destruction.
She shook her head hard, tears spilling freely now.
“I need you to understand why I’m scared,” she whispered desperately. “I am watching the person I love disappear in front of me.”
Tyler’s expression shattered.
“I'm not disappearing,” he said immediately, but the conviction wasn’t there, instead it sounded pleading.
“You don’t sleep anymore.”
“I’m trying—”
“You barely eat.”
“I forget sometimes—”
“You shake all the time, Tyler.”
That one hit him.
Jenna saw it land instantly in the way his face tightened and his eyes dropped away from hers again. Shame crawled visibly across his features, raw and ugly.
“You think I don’t notice?” she asked, voice trembling harder now. “You think I haven’t heard you throwing up from anxiety in the bathroom at three in the morning? You think I don’t see you checking your phone every thirty seconds like the world’s going to end if you miss one email?”
Tyler’s breathing stuttered. "I’m not asking you to stop making music,” she said quickly, crawling a little closer despite the ache building in her chest. “God, Tyler, I would never ask that of you. I know what it means to you. I know it’s part of who you are.” Her voice softened painfully. “But I don’t know how to compete with the part of you that’s trying to die for it.”
Tyler went completely still. The words seemed to knock the air out of the room itself. For a long moment he just stared at her, eyes wide and glassy and deeply wounded, like she’d reached inside his ribcage and exposed something he’d been desperately trying to hide even from himself.
Then, quietly “I don’t know how to do this differently.”
“I didn’t mean for you to stop making music; I’d never say that,” Jenna said quickly, the words tumbling out like she was afraid silence would make everything worse. Her throat tightened around every sentence. “I know what it means to you. I... I just think that maybe you should take a break. Relax. You’re not sleeping and you’re barely eating because you just don’t stop.” Her voice wavered on the last word.
It hung there between them like something heavier than either of them knew how to carry.
Jenna’s heart beat so hard it felt almost erratic, like it had lost its rhythm and was trying to find it again in panic. She could hear it in her ears, loud and insistent, drowning out the quiet hum of the apartment. Tyler was still sitting against the wall in front of her, knees drawn in slightly now, shoulders slumped like gravity had doubled just for him.
She wanted to reach for him.
Her hand hovered for a second, half a movement, instinctive, desperate for contact, for proof that he was still there and not slipping further away from her with every exhausted breath he took.
But she stopped herself. Because he’d already flinched once.
And the thought of pushing him further back, of making him feel cornered in his own breaking, made something in her chest twist painfully. So she let her hand fall back into her lap.
“I don’t want to invade your space,” she added softly, voice breaking at the edges. “I just… I don’t know how to watch this anymore, Tyler.”
Tyler didn’t respond straight away.
He looked like he was trying to process her words through layers of exhaustion that made everything slower, heavier. His eyes stayed lowered, fixed somewhere just past her knees, like looking directly at her was too intense, too much information for a system already overloaded.
A long silence stretched.
Then, finally, he exhaled shakily. “It’s not that simple,” he murmured.
Jenna’s chest tightened. “I know it’s not simple,” she said, softer now, almost pleading. “But you’re running yourself into the ground and acting like it’s the only way to keep going. I can see how much you’re struggling. I can see how close you are to just..." her voice cracked, and she forced it steady again, “...to just collapsing.”
Tyler’s jaw clenched.
A flicker of something passed across his face, fear, maybe, or resistance, or the instinct to argue. But it didn’t fully form into words. It just sat there, trapped behind exhaustion and something deeper that looked almost like shame.
“I’m fine,” he said automatically. But it came out flat.
Neither of them believed it.
Jenna shook her head slowly, tears slipping down her cheeks again. “No, you’re not.”
That word landed differently this time.
Not like an accusation, more like a truth she was too scared to ignore anymore.
Tyler finally lifted his eyes to hers.
And what Jenna saw there undid her completely.
He wasn’t just tired. He looked like he was surviving something that had been going on for so long he didn’t remember what it felt like to be okay. Like the idea of stopping, of resting, of letting someone else carry even a fraction of the weight, wasn’t comforting. It was terrifying.
“I don’t know how to stop,” he admitted quietly, voice barely holding together. “If I stop, everything catches up.”
Jenna’s breath shook.
She nodded once, like she understood him even when it broke her to.
And she did.
She understood too well.
The dark circles beneath his eyes only made his already pale complexion look worse, washed out, almost sickly under the dim apartment light. His cheekbones stood out sharply now, angles that hadn’t been there before, as if his face itself had been slowly carved down by exhaustion. Jenna noticed it every time she looked at him, even when she tried not to. Even when she told herself she was imagining it.
There were moments, quiet, horrifying moments, where she genuinely had to blink a few times just to reconcile the man in front of her with the one she knew.
Because it was still Tyler.
And yet not quite.
Not in the way that mattered. His hair was slightly unkempt, like he’d run his hands through it too many times without ever really noticing. His shoulders stayed hunched forward even when he wasn’t moving, like his body had forgotten what rest looked like. And his eyes, God, his eyes, looked permanently caught between focus and fading out, like staying present in the room was becoming an effort he was no longer winning.
Jenna’s chest tightened painfully as she watched him sit there, so still it almost looked like he’d stopped properly occupying his own body.
She swallowed hard. “I don’t recognize you like this sometimes,” she whispered before she could stop herself.
The words hung in the space between them immediately, sharp and too honest to take back.
Tyler’s fingers twitched.
Just a small movement, but Jenna saw it instantly.
He didn’t look up right away. When he finally did, it wasn’t anger she saw in his face.
It was something quieter.
Something that looked like it hurt more.
“I’m still me,” he said, but it came out uncertain, like he was asking her to agree rather than stating a fact.
Jenna’s eyes filled again.
“I know you are,” she said quickly, shaking her head, voice breaking. “That’s not what I meant. I just... Tyler, you look like you’re disappearing in front of me.”
His jaw tightened. For a second it looked like he might argue again, like instinct would push him to defend the only way he knew how to survive, through work, through motion, through refusing to stop long enough for everything to catch up.
But then his shoulders dropped slightly. Just a fraction.
Like even arguing took too much energy now.
And that scared Jenna more than anything else had so far.
“I love you so much,” Jenna said, her voice breaking in a way she couldn’t control anymore, “and I just can’t stand to see you this way.”
The words fell out of her like something she’d been holding in her chest for too long, too tightly, until it had finally forced its way free. Tears kept slipping down her face, silent but constant, tracking warm paths along her cheeks as she watched him sit there like he was miles away from her even though they were in the same room.
It hurt, physically hurt, that he wouldn’t look at her. Like if he met her eyes, something in him might finally crack.
Tyler just shook his head slowly. His eyes squeezed shut, and for a second his whole face tightened as if he was trying to shut the world out entirely. The muscles in his jaw worked faintly, like he was holding something back, words, emotion, maybe even a breakdown he didn’t have the energy to let happen.
Jenna’s breath caught. “Please,” she whispered, softer now, almost pleading in a different way. “Tyler, just.... look at me.”
He didn’t.
His head stayed tilted slightly down, eyes still closed, shoulders tense against the wall like he was bracing himself against something only he could feel. His hands curled loosely in his lap, fingers twitching every few seconds as if even stillness wasn’t fully possible for him anymore.
“I can’t,” he murmured finally. The words were so quiet Jenna almost missed them.
Her heart sank immediately.
“Can’t what?” she asked, even though she was afraid of the answer.
Tyler swallowed hard, throat moving visibly, his eyes still shut. “Do this,” he said, voice rough with exhaustion. “Talk. Feel. Think. All of it. I just.... ” His breath stuttered, breaking halfway through. “I don’t have anything left to give it.”
That was when Jenna’s expression shifted and something inside her had finally tipped from fear into helpless understanding.
Because it wasn’t that he didn’t love her.
It was that he had nothing left to use to show it.
And watching him sit there, trying so hard not to fall apart while already halfway gone, Jenna felt the terrifying truth settle into her bones: He wasn’t pushing her away on purpose. He was drowning, and he didn’t know how to stop it.
“I can’t stop,” Tyler blurted out suddenly, the words rushing forward like they’d been trapped too long to be contained any longer. His breathing picked up almost instantly, turning shallow and uneven, like his body was already reacting before his mind could catch up. “I have to keep going, it has to be perfect...”
He broke off, swallowing hard, but it didn’t settle anything. It only made the panic worse.
“This is all I have,” he said, voice cracking as it rose, “it’s all I know…”
His head tipped back and hit the wall behind him with a dull thud, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to feel like surrender.
For a second, he just stayed there; eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched so tightly it looked painful, chest rising too fast like he couldn’t find enough air in the room. Jenna’s entire body went still, watching him unravel in real time, like something inside him had finally snapped under the weight it had been carrying for too long.
Then it came out all at once.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, but it wasn’t convincing, not even to him. “And you don’t get to tell me what to do. I can’t just stop, I can’t stop, I can’t...I can’t just... I cant...”
The repetition spiraled, faster each time, like his thoughts were breaking down into fragments that couldn’t hold shape anymore.
“And...” He laughed once, sharp and broken, but it turned into something closer to a sob. “Who even are you?”
That made Jenna flinch.
Tyler’s head dropped forward as he finally looked at her properly.
His eyes were bloodshot, glassy with tears he clearly hadn’t meant to let out. There was something raw and unrecognizable in his expression, not anger exactly, but something far more disoriented. Like he didn’t fully know where he was anymore, or how the conversation had gotten here, or why everything suddenly felt like too much.
“You’re not my mother,” he choked out, voice rising again, cracked and desperate. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. If you think I’m not eating or sleeping enough, I’m a fucking grown man, I can handle myself...”
But even as he said it, his voice betrayed him.
It wobbled at the edges, and fell apart in the middle.
And then it stopped being a speech entirely, and in came the breakdown.
The fight drained out of him all at once as his hands came up to his face, pressing hard against his eyes like he could physically block everything out. His shoulders shook once, then again, and then he folded inward, curling slightly where he sat against the wall like his body had finally given up pretending it could hold itself together.
His fingers dragged through his hair, gripping tightly, fists tangling in the strands as if grounding himself through pain was the only thing left that worked.
“I can’t,” he whispered again, but this time it wasn’t defensive. It was lost. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…”
“Why won’t you listen to me?” Jenna’s voice cracked mid-sentence, fraying completely at the edges. “Can’t you see I’m just trying to help you?”
She reached out before she could second-guess herself, placing a trembling hand on his forearm, gently and tentatively, like she was trying to anchor him back into the moment. Back into her. For a second she held her breath, waiting for him to pull away again, waiting for that reflexive flinch that had started to feel like rejection.
But Tyler didn’t move. He just sat there, folded into himself against the wall, hands still tangled in his hair, breathing uneven and broken.
Jenna swallowed hard, voice softening even as it shook apart. “We’re supposed to be in this together,” she whispered. “We are supposed to take care of each other. I... I thought you trusted me.”
The words landed more accusingly than she intended. Her hand stayed where it was, but her grip loosened slightly, like she was afraid holding on too tightly might hurt him more.
Then she shifted, sliding down fully beside him on the floor. The cold wall against her back grounded her in a way she didn’t want, it made everything too real. There was no escaping this moment, no softening it with sleep or distance or time. Just the two of them sitting in the aftermath of something neither of them had the language to fix.
Tyler was close enough now that she could feel the uneven rhythm of his breathing. Every inhale too sharp, every exhale too unsteady. Jenna’s shoulders began to shake.
At first it was silent, just the weight of everything breaking through her restraint. Then it turned into small, helpless sobs she couldn’t swallow back anymore. She pressed her hand briefly to her mouth, trying to contain it, but it didn’t work. Nothing was working anymore.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered through tears, barely audible. “I don’t know how to reach you, how to help you.”
She turned her head slightly, just enough to see him properly.
And what hurt the most wasn’t the shouting anymore. It was the distance.
Even sitting right next to her, Tyler felt unreachable, like he was behind glass she couldn’t touch, couldn’t break through no matter how hard she tried.
For a moment, Jenna’s mind betrayed her with something softer. Something dangerous in its tenderness.
Laying in his arms. Being held. Breathing in the quiet after everything had settled. The way it used to be; automatic, natural, safe.
But the image collapsed almost as soon as it formed. Because that wasn’t here anymore, not in this moment, and not with him like this.
Jenna’s breath hitched again, and she wiped at her face quickly, frustrated at herself for falling apart but unable to stop it.
Tyler still hadn’t looked at her. But his hand, still trembling slightly, had shifted just a fraction closer to hers on the floor.
“You just don’t understand,” Tyler whispered.
The words didn’t come out sharp this time. There was no fight left in them. Just exhaustion, raw and unfiltered exhaustion. like he’d been holding that sentence in his chest for so long it had stopped belonging to anger and started belonging to grief.
He let out a shaky breath, head still angled downward, eyes unfocused on nothing in particular.
Jenna went still beside him, not because she was offended, but because she knew that tone.
It wasn’t the sound of Tyler pushing her away.
It was the sound of Tyler who genuinely believed he was already too far gone to be reached.
“I’m trying to,” she said quietly, voice still broken but steadier now, like she was forcing herself to stay present even while everything in her wanted to fall apart. “Tyler, I am trying. I’m sitting right here. I’m listening to you.”
Her hand hovered near his forearm again, hesitant, remembering the flinch from before. She didn’t touch him this time. She just left it close enough that he could choose it.
A silence stretched between them. Long enough that the noises outside the house started to feel louder; distant traffic, a muffled siren somewhere far off in the city, the hum of something electrical in the walls that neither of them had noticed before tonight.
Tyler swallowed hard. His throat worked like it hurt.
“It’s not just work,” he said finally, voice barely holding together. “It’s... if I stop, everything comes back.”
Jenna’s breath caught. “What comes back?” she asked softly.
Tyler didn’t answer immediately. His fingers curled once against his own palm, like he was trying to physically contain whatever was inside him. “The noise.”
Jenna’s expression shifted, subtle, but immediate.
Tyler pressed his eyes shut again, as if saying it out loud made it more real. “It doesn’t stop,” he whispered. “It never stops, and when I’m working, when I’m writing, when I’m doing literally anytging it gets… quieter, not gone, just quieter.”
His breath hitched. “But when I stop,” he added, voice breaking slightly, “it all comes back at once. And I can’t...” He shook his head once, sharply. “I can’t sit in that.”
Jenna’s eyes filled again, but this time she didn’t move away from the feeling.
Tyler finally opened his eyes again, but still didn’t look at her directly. His gaze stayed somewhere between them, like eye contact would unravel him completely.
“You don’t understand,” he repeated, softer now. Not accusing, just certain. “Because you don’t have to hear it.”
When Jenna finally managed to pull herself together enough to speak, it felt less like composure and more like she was holding herself upright by sheer force of will.
“Then help me understand, please,” she said quietly. Her voice was still unsteady, but there was something less panic in it now.
“Because all I understand right now is that you’re working yourself to death,” she continued, swallowing hard around the lump in her throat, “and it’s killing me to see you this way and not be able to do anything.” The words cracked at the end.
Her hands started shaking as soon as she lowered them into her lap. She noticed it immediately, how obvious it was, how uncontrollable. So she clasped them tightly together, fingers interlocking hard enough that it almost hurt, as if pressure alone could force her body to behave, to calm down, to obey her.
Her whole body trembled; shoulders, breath, even the small movements she tried to suppress. It was like her fear had spread beyond emotion and turned physical, leaking into every part of her.
Tyler didn’t respond right away.
He just sat there, still folded against the wall, the tension in him quieter now but no less present. The silence between them wasn’t sharp anymore. It was heavy, and thick. The kind of silence that felt like it had meaning even when no one was speaking.
Jenna forced herself to keep going, even though her voice wavered again.
“I’m not trying to take it away from you,” she said softly. “I’m not trying to change who you are or what you do. I just…” Her breath shook. “I don’t know how to watch you disappear like this and say it okay.”
Her eyes dropped for a second, blinking quickly against the sting of tears. When she looked back up, her voice was smaller.
“I don’t want to lose you to this.”
Tyler didn’t speak for a long time. The silence that followed wasn’t empty, it was full in a way that made it almost unbearable. The only sounds in the room were the uneven rhythm of both their breathing, still slightly broken from crying, and the occasional shaky inhale Jenna couldn’t quite steady no matter how hard she tried. It felt like the house itself had shrunk around you both, closing in just enough to make every emotion louder.
Jenna sat there watching him, helpless in the most honest way she’d ever felt it. Helpless like she cared so much it hurt and still couldn’t reach him.
Tyler’s head was slightly bowed now, his gaze unfocused somewhere near the floor between them. His hands, still tangled loosely in his hair a moment ago, had fallen back into his lap without him really seeming to notice. His shoulders rose and fell unevenly, like his body couldn’t decide whether to calm down or fall apart again.
Jenna wished, that she could see what was happening inside his head.
That she could reach into that silence and pull out the thoughts twisting him into knots.
That there was some version of love that came with instructions.
Some way to fix this without feeling like she was losing him while trying.
Tyler swallowed hard, the sound of it was small, but in the quiet room it felt loud enough to shift something.
Jenna’s breath caught immediately. Because something about it felt different.
Like a decision had just been made somewhere deep inside him, quiet, final, and heavy.
Tyler didn’t look up right away. When he finally did, it was slow and careful, Like he was afraid of what would happen if he moved too quickly, or too honestly.
His eyes met hers properly this time, and Jenna felt her entire body go still. There was no anger in his expression anymore, they were just empty.
“I…” he started, then stopped.
His throat worked again.
And whatever he was about to say, whatever internal line he had just crossed toward, hung there between you both, waiting.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Tyler whispered.
His voice was so small Jenna barely recognized it. Not because it didn’t belong to him, but because she had never heard it stripped down like this before. All the edges gone. All the defences. Just something raw and unprotected left behind.
“I’m just so scared all the time and I don’t know why,” he said, words stumbling over each other now, faster but weaker, like they were slipping out before he could stop them. “But I just feel like I’m dying.”
Jenna’s breath caught sharply.
Tyler pulled his knees up to his chest, folding into himself like his body was trying to make itself smaller, safer, like there was somewhere inside that shape he could hide from whatever was happening in his mind. His arms wrapped tightly around his legs, knuckles pressing into his skin hard enough to blanch.
“I can’t sleep,” he continued, voice breaking, “because the world is ending and if the world is ending then I am too and I just can’t breathe...”
His sentence fractured completely. He sucked in a breath, but it didn’t feel like air reached where it needed to go.
“I can never breathe,” he choked out.
And then it was like his body confirmed it, his chest started rising and falling too fast, sharp, uneven pulls that didn’t seem to satisfy anything. Each inhale looked like it came too late, like he was always one breath behind whatever panic was chasing him. His face tightened in pain, not emotional anymore but physical, like his body had become overwhelmed by its own alarm system.
Jenna’s hands twitched instinctively in her lap.
Every instinct in her screamed to move closer; To hold him, to anchor him, to do anything that might pull him back into the room.
But she hesitated, because the fear in him wasn’t just sadness, and she could see it clearly now: too much pressure, too much closeness, too much anything might tip him further instead of helping.
So she stayed where she was, but leaned forward slightly, lowering her voice like she was trying not to startle him out of the moment.
“Tyler,” she said gently. “Hey… I’m here. You’re safe. You’re in the house with me.”
His eyes squeezed shut, his head shaking faintly like he couldn’t accept the words.
“I can’t... ” he tried again, but it broke apart halfway through. “I can’t stop it. I can’t make it stop.”
Jenna swallowed hard, forcing herself to keep her voice steady even as her own chest tightened painfully.
“Okay,” she said softly. “Okay, I here with you.”A
A pause. “I’m not going anywhere,” she added.
Tyler’s breathing was still too fast, still jagged, but something in him flickered at her words, like part of him registered them even if the panic didn’t fully loosen its grip.
Jenna didn’t reach for him yet, but she stayed exactly where she was, present and steady, letting her voice be the thing that held the space between them when her hands couldn’t.
“I’m here. I want to help you. Please know that,” Jenna whispered gently, her voice soft in a way that felt like it had to be careful not to break him further. “Ty… I love you.”
The words settled into the space between them.
For a second, nothing changed. Tyler was still folded into himself, still shaking, still caught in the tight spiral of his breathing. Jenna stayed exactly where she was, her body tense but open, like she was offering herself as something solid he could choose if he needed it.
And then, suddenly, he moved. It was abrupt, almost disorienting after how still he’d been. Tyler lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her neck, pulling her into him with a force that startled her enough to make her inhale sharply. There was no hesitation in it, just a desperate, instinctive collapse into contact, like something inside him had finally chosen the only thing it could still reach.
Jenna froze for half a second, completely thrown by the sudden change, and then she softened immediately. Her hands hovered for a moment, unsure, then carefully came up, one settling between his shoulder blades, the other lightly at the back of his head, as if she was afraid to hold too tightly but even more afraid to let go.
Tyler clung to her properly clung to her, his grip was tight around her shoulders, fingers pressing into her hoodie like he was anchoring himself to something real. His face buried against her neck, breath still uneven but now muffled, closer, warmer. His whole body was shaking, less like anger now, and more like collapse finding somewhere safe to land.
Jenna could feel it in him instantly. The contrast was almost painful. One moment he had been unraveling in isolation, drowning in his own mind, and now he was holding onto her like she was the only thing keeping him from slipping under completely.
“It’s okay,” she whispered automatically, voice breaking as her arms finally tightened around him just enough to steady him without trapping him. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”
Tyler didn’t respond. He just held on tighter.
Like letting go wasn’t even an option he could process right now.
And Jenna stayed there with him, breathing as evenly as she could manag, letting him borrow her steadiness when he had none of his own.
Tyler’s despair sat heavy against Jenna’s chest, like something had physically settled there and refused to move. Her heart felt like it had folded in on itself, crumpled under the weight of watching him like this, watching him unravel and not knowing how long it had been building before it finally spilled over. And underneath that was something sharper, more painful: the realisation that she might have been seeing signs for longer than she’d allowed herself to admit. But she pushed it down, because it couldn’t matter more than this moment.
Tyler needed her here. Not lost in guilt. Not spiralling in hindsight. Just here.
Her arms held him steady where he clung to her, one hand gently at the back of his head, the other moving slowly in small, grounding strokes between his shoulder blades. She could feel how tightly wound he was even now, like his body didn’t fully trust that safety was real, like he was still braced for everything to disappear again.
“It’ll be okay, Ty,” Jenna whispered, her voice soft but anchored, careful with every word as if she was placing them down where they wouldn’t break him further. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but things will get better.”
Tyler didn’t respond, but his grip didn’t loosen either.
“You’ll feel whole again someday,” she continued gently, even though her own voice wavered at the edges. “Not like this. Not stuck in this feeling.” A pause. “You’ll get there,” she said, firmer now, “I promise.”
Her hand pressed lightly at the back of his head, grounding him closer against her.
“And I’ll be here for you, okay?” she added, softer again. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise I’m not leaving you in this.”
Tyler’s breathing was still uneven, but something shifted in the smallest way, barely noticeable unless you were holding him like she was. A fraction less frantic. A fraction more anchored to her voice than whatever was inside his head.
Jenna felt it before she saw it.
A small, almost imperceptible movement where his forehead was pressed into her shoulder Tyler nodding once, faint and shaky, like even agreement cost him effort.
And something inside Jenna loosened all at once. Her breath caught, and for a moment she just held him tighter without thinking about it, her hand still resting at the back of his head like an anchor she was afraid to move. Relief came in a wave so quiet it didn’t feel like relief at first, more like her body finally remembering it was allowed to exhale.
She closed her eyes briefly, pressing her cheek against his hair. I just want you to be okay, she thought.
Not the version of him that was performing okay. Not the version of him that was surviving by force. Just… him. Whole. Breathing without it hurting. Sleeping without fear. Existing without feeling like the world was collapsing around him.
Tyler stayed in her arms. Still trembling, still fragile in a way that made her chest ache, but no longer pulling away. No longer lost entirely in that frantic, unreachable place. Just here, in pieces, held together by contact and sound and the quiet repetition of her voice still lingering between them.
Jenna’s fingers moved again slowly along his back, careful and steady, like she was reminding him without words: I’m still here. You’re still here.
And even though she knew this wasn’t the end of it she let herself hold onto this moment anyway.
Because for the first time in a long while, Tyler wasn’t disappearing in front of her.
He was just… held.