His last ex called, one time after they split, to say he was sorry.

Arlen could have laughed.

“Sorry”, as if that would change anything. “Sorry”, as if he hadn't done it a million times over, promising he’d change. As if he hadn’t peeled away the carefully constructed shelter Arlen had built around himself, brick by brick, promising he would be different from any of the others, promising that he wouldn't hurt Arlen like everyone seemed so prone to.

As if he hadn't done exactly as everyone else did.

Arlen had never been the combative sort. Or if he had, it was so far into his youth that he couldn’t remember it. When people around him got loud, got angry, Arlen got… quiet. Sad.

He could remember crying a lot, when he was younger. Could remember being so frightfully nervous of angering or disappointing someone that the slightest indication was enough to get him sobbing.

He’d grown out of the tears, now. He'd had to—too many people took advantage—but the fear of letting another soul down still haunted him like a spirit in his bed. He’d do just about anything to avoid hurting someone else, even at the cost of himself.

His heart may have closed in on itself, but it still bled for the pain of other people. He may not let people love him, but he loved others just the same as before. He couldn’t help it.

And maybe it was better that way.

But still, there came another (as he suspected there always would be, despite Arlen’s best efforts. “Another”. Someone to break past Arlen’s defenses because he was too tired to hold them himself), who wrapped Arlen up in the fantasy of it all again, who made him believe in magic.

”I won’t treat you how they treat you”, he’d said, and Arlen was all too desperate to believe it, all too desperate to believe that someone would love him right, would treat him like he was special, like he was what someone wanted, what anyone wanted. Because a lot of times, Arlen didn’t feel like anyone would ever want him at all. Like he was an obnoxious afterward to a story that was already finished.

Arlen didn’t have anyone who put his wants and needs first. And really, who could blame them? Arlen wouldn’t put himself first, and people, no matter how good, could only love him as well as he loved himself.

Too bad for them, he supposed. He didn’t love himself at all.

”I won’t treat you how they treat you”, the man had said, but he would, and he did, and Arlen couldn’t even be upset for it.

Arlen’s heart was made for breaking—he could take it.

He could take it just fine.

And he’d do it again, and again.

He’d do so until he couldn’t breathe, probably.

And y’know?

Maybe that was okay.

Maybe Arlen’s whole point was just to lift other people up. Maybe he wasn’t ever supposed to touch the stars himself.

He could live with that.

He could live with that just fine.