Neon Bruises

The rain came down in sheets, a cold, indifferent curtain between Leo and everything else. His cheap jacket, already waterlogged, clung to his shoulders like a shroud. Each step splashed, sending icy sprays up his ankles, but he barely registered the cold anymore. It was just a dull throb, a constant companion to the ache in his chest that had settled in weeks ago and refused to leave.

Neon. It bled into the puddles, smearing the asphalt with bruised purples, aggressive reds, and sickly greens. A liquor store sign, ‘OPEN 24 HRS,’ dissolved into a shimmering smear of crimson. A cheap motel’s ‘VACANCY’ sign, broken at the ‘C,’ pulsed an erratic blue. He stared at the distorted reflections, watching the city’s harsh truths warp and bend, a mirror to the mess inside his own head.

Sarah. Her name wasn’t a scream anymore, just a whisper, a persistent hum behind his ears. He saw her face in the steam rising from a grate, her hair wet from some forgotten shower, a towel wrapped around it. He remembered her laugh, a sound like wind chimes, before it became brittle, before it became silent. It was his fault. Always his fault. The words, the stupid, angry words he couldn’t take back, even if he tried to claw them out of the wet air.

He stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, though he had no destination. His eyes fixed on a particular puddle, a small crater reflecting the bright, unblinking eye of a traffic light. Red, then green. The transition felt significant, weighty, a decision he couldn’t make. He saw his own face in the slick surface, shadowed and indistinct, a ghost framed by the garish lights. He looked tired. More than tired. Hollowed out.

A couple hurried past, sharing a too-small umbrella, their shoulders pressed close. Laughter. A brief, sharp jolt of something unpleasant, like a phantom limb pain, shot through him. He looked away quickly, his jaw tight. What did he break? What did he lose, really? Or was it just… what did he push away? That last fight, her eyes, wet but not with tears, just a cold, weary understanding. He’d seen it then, the moment he’d truly screwed things up beyond repair.

The hum of the city swelled around him, a relentless, mechanical breath. Car tires hissed on the wet pavement. An ambulance wailed in the distance, a long, drawn-out cry that felt like his own desperate, unheard scream. His phone sat heavy in his pocket, a silent brick. Who would he even call? His mom would ask too many questions. His buddy, Mark, would tell him to 'man up' and get a beer. Neither felt like what he needed. What he needed, he wasn’t sure even existed.

He remembered another rainy night, not so long ago. Sarah and him, huddled under a big, ridiculous golf umbrella he’d bought on a whim. Her hand in his, warm, dry. The way she’d leaned her head on his shoulder, a silent weight of trust. He’d felt… whole then. Not perfect, never perfect, but complete. Now, only the chill seeped into his bones, and the silence that followed him was deafening.

He walked aimlessly, away from his empty apartment, away from the silence that screamed her absence, even when it was just the fridge humming. He found himself on a stretch of road lined with shuttered storefronts, the neon less abundant here, just a sickly yellow glow from a distant streetlamp struggling against the gloom. The rain eased a bit, a soft drizzle now, almost a mist.

He ducked under the sparse awning of a defunct laundromat. The glass panes were streaked with grime, reflecting a faint, distorted blue from the 'Wash & Dry' sign, still faintly lit, though the machines inside looked ancient, abandoned. He saw his reflection again, clearer this time, and he flinched. The man staring back looked like someone he used to know, someone with less weight in their shoulders, less defeat in their eyes.

A solitary sock, a faded gray, clung to the window’s glass, forgotten, left behind. It was a silly thing, really, but it caught him. A single, insignificant piece, lost from its pair. It hung there, limp and forlorn, a small, quiet symbol of his own unraveling. He wondered if anyone would ever come back for it. Probably not.

He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, his knuckles white. The cold was a sharp, insistent bite now, numbing his fingers. He needed to fix it. Fix himself. But where did you even start when you felt like a shattered reflection, each piece glinting with a different kind of pain? The answer didn’t come. Only the quiet drip, drip, drip of water from the broken awning, echoing the slow, steady bleed of his hope.

He pushed away from the wall, forcing himself to move. One foot in front of the other. The asphalt gleamed. Each step a dull thud against the wet concrete, a dull thud in his chest. He was still walking, after all. Still moving. That had to count for something, right? The neon still bled into the puddles, casting its harsh, beautiful, brutal light, and he walked through it, a ghost in a city that didn't care.