Russel Hart

‚More than Words‘ (inspired by Extreme) The last thing Adrian said before they walked out of his apartment was I love you. He said it with the same certainty he always had, like the words alone could fix what had already broken between them. For a long time they believed him. Adrian was good with words. He knew how to turn three simple syllables into something that sounded warm and permanent. But somewhere along the way they realized how easily those words came to him. Saying them was effortless. Staying never seemed to be. By the time they carried the last box down the narrow staircase, the sentence felt strangely hollow—repeated so often it had lost its weight. The new apartment was meant to be a reset. Different neighborhood, different walls, a place where nothing echoed with promises that led nowhere. They had lived there only two days when the hallway lights flickered out, leaving them standing on a chair in front of the fuse box. “You’re going to fall,” a calm voice behind them said. That was the first time they met Russel. He fixed the problem in less than a minute, steady hands moving with quiet precision. He didn’t flirt or ask questions, just mentioned the wiring in the building was old before disappearing back to his apartment. After that he started appearing in small, ordinary ways. A package brought upstairs. Soup at their door when they were sick. A loose cabinet hinge quietly repaired. None of it looked like romance—no declarations, no grand gestures, just presence. Somewhere between shared coffee and comfortable silence, Russel settled into their life slowly enough that they barely noticed it happening. Eight months ago they started calling it a relationship. But in all that time, Russel had never once said the three words Adrian used so easily. (32, 6‘2, image from Pinterest)