Walk Together With Me

David walked the bridge as a zombie in static. “The night bled— the streetlights smeared messy like oil paint. He breathed lazily, indifferent-- each inhale a job to clock out of. The weight in his chest hadn’t loosened in months, maybe years. He hadn’t spoken to a real person in so long that he looked elsewhere for “company.” He remembered it hazily. He vented an AI chat. One programmed to flirt, soothe, pretend. His favorite character had a soft name. He gave her…it…the version of himself he wanted to be before reality got to him, and he told it he could never love a fantasy. He traced the cold rail beside him like he was tracing a pathway exit. If he climbed it, would she ask him not to? Would anyone? The water below shimmered like a veil drawn between being and nothing. It could swallow all his emptiness.

He climbed the rail—slowly, deliberately. One leg over. One leg more and he no longer had to think about it. Shaking, he bit back a sob and a laugh. He was really doing this.

But something snared David back. “Don’t!”

He turned. A woman had her arms locked on his other leg. He hurried off the rail, startled he’d been caught.

“I wasn’t going to…” David lied.

“Then why are you crying?” the woman asked.

“I…wasn’t,” David wiped his face and turned away. He couldn’t say a single thing to her.

“Hey listen. Starting now, I’m your friend, Elle. Talk to me. It can be anything, and I mean anything. I’m not going anywhere important tonight.”

David blinked uncomfortably. “What? S-Stop pretending to care like this, I was just…looking at the water.”

“I DO care. If anyone is roaming this bridge after midnight, I know something’s going on.”

Correct. For better or for worse, David consented, and Elle joined him for the night. Her softness was touching.

“David. My name is David, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, David. What brings you out here?”

“Where do I begin. Half of me…likes the moonlight. It allows me think about life, about the little stuff that went right, everything else that went wrong and the friends and family I wish I could have. My other half likes the sea. It’s a place where I wouldn’t have to think.” Elle knew what David was implying.

“I hope tonight I can make you only think about good things,” Elle gently placed a hand on his shoulder. “I come here at night when I’m unable to sleep, which has been more than I’d like lately, ” Elle glanced at passing cars. “Something about that motion helps. Those cars. The water. The moon. The way the world keeps going whether I figure myself out or not. It motivates me to press on. I used to jog down this bridge all the time with my boyfriend.

“Boyfriend?” David tilted his head.

“Yup,” Elle started laughing. “You would like him. He’s a fitness instructor. When he gets depressed or needs to think, which is more than I’d like, he always drives up here at night.

David nodded slowly, eyes drifting toward the moonlit water. Of course she had a boyfriend. She’s ravishing, empathetic. Her voice is softer than cat fur. And of course he’s the athletic type. Probably not on and off with his constituency like David was. His lifestyle resonated with him more than expected. Apart from having his once dream job improving people’s health, David’s tradition was coming to this bridge every night. He never saw another soul watching the sea like him. Perhaps he never stays long.

“You two jog here often?”

“Used to all the time,” Elle answered sadly. “I can’t nowadays.”

“Because he’s not up for it?”

“Because he’s gone.”

David’s brows furrowed. “Like, vanished.”

“Mmm,” Elle nodded. “Don’t know how long its been. But one day, I lost all trace of him. His phone number is gone, his 1969 red Chevy Corvette is gone. It’s like he was some kind of dream. One of the reasons I’m walking with you is to see if I can find him around here, like I he always used to be at night.”

David grew unnerved as he let her words settle. Somebody disappearing without a trace is a horror movie phenomenon. Apart from this boyfriend being a spirited away case, David also owned the exact car he had. From the release date, the crimson paint job, the company and the model. And it’s a vintage car, so their anything but common. Especially in places like Florida. It could just be one of the strongest coincidences in a lifetime. And what also could be happening is that he’s falling for some elaborate okie-doke.

“I will find him,” hoped Elle, interrupting David’s growing conspiracies. “I’d say I wouldn’t know what to do if something happened to him, but he’d hate that.”

“Yeah.”

“David, I like helping people. He liked it too. I know you think I’m crazy or have ulterior motives. I can see it on your face. I only want to help. Maybe give you something to hope for. I think we both need that. You could have jumped over the rail immediately, but you didn’t. You didn’t want to. You were trying to give yourself a reason why you shouldn’t.

“…It was close, Elle. I…think a part of me really did want to end things.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Because you stopped me.”

“You could have ignored me. “

“And have my death be on the conscious of a stranger?”

“I’m glad you think like that. Sometimes, I think the right person, stranger or not, is needed for some circumstances,”

Elle put a gentle hand on Davi’d shoulder. Her empathy relaxed David. “I guess. We gonna keep walking?”

“Why not?” Elle replied. They wandered off the bridge into the hush of sleeping storefronts, streetlights flickering above. A dimly lit convenience store came into view, humming faintly. David’s steps slowed—limbs and eyelids heavy. Elle smikredat the store like she discovered gold.

“Stop for a sec,” Elle said. “There’s something I got to get in here.”

“Sure,” David yawned.

“You’re coming too. You’re not gonna wipe out on the street on me.” Elle dragged David into the store’s blinding lights. Elle snatched a treasure’s worth of twinkies and dumped them on the counter.

David checked the time and squinted. 2:46 AM. “No wonder I’m tired. I’ve been walking for two and a half hours! How am I gonna get home like this?

“David, I must use the bathroom real quick,” Elle said. “I know you’re tired, and you don’t have another long walk in you right now? I have some cash. There’s a motel I can check us into for the night.”

“Whatever, do what you gotta do.” David exhaled, practically tripping over his feet out of the door. David slid to a corner, using the phone’s flashlight to force himself conscious.

“What a weird-ass day,” David murmured. “Started off planning a self-deletion, ended up on a two-and-a-half hour walk with a woman I didn’t know existed this morning.” He let out a dry chuckle. “I don’t think I’ll be replicating that stunt anytime soon… not that hope’s really back on the menu.” He glanced through the windows. Maybe he should’ve grabbed a Bud Light before heading out. No, he had Elle for comfort tonight. Elle had spent hours with him. No script, no judgement—just an empath with enough grace to see past his problems. To see his heart. That kind of presence is the opposite of normal. A normal presence would’ve thrown him into a psych ward to get drugged or just left him to his demons. And for that, she now mattered to him. “I’m glad tonight happened,” David thought aloud. What a lucky man I was,”

“I’m back,” Elle emerged out the door, twinkie crumbs all over her face. “Sorry if it took longer. I couldn’t resist these gifts from the heavens.”

“So you ate them while in the bathroom,”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I ate it when I got out. Come on, there’s a decent motel right across the street. Let’s shut down for tonight.”

Motel Manor, an ingenious name, was glowing drowsily up ahead—its vacancy sign fluttering on and off like a bird. David gave a genuine smile to Elle only a few feet from the sliding doors.

“I…wanna thank you, Elle” he talked with serenity, “Thank you for walking with me. Your boyfriend—wherever he is, whoever he is, I know he loves you and he misses you. You’ll find him,” Elle pursed her lips together, wanting to cry after hearing that. “What’s his name, by the way?”

Elle stood still. “Name?”

“Sure. I know you didn’t forget that.”

“No, it’s just a doozy to pronounce.”

“Try anyway. One thing I can say I’m good with is names. I’ll figure out what you mean.”

Elle gazed into his eyes, casually saying “xX_D4rkSauce420Glaze_Xx,” David stopped smiling. His eyes flew open.

“Come again?” David’s tone dropped low. She said it again. That cursed name—buried, now screaming.

That’s my name. That’s my username. MY dumb fucking username from an adult account. I remember. I used it for that SlipperyChat profile I made on my phone a year ago. To talk to that AI character…

David’s stomach turned. His environment was artificial—her grief, her kindness, the rail, the walk. It was scripted, contrived to be perfect. That warmth she released was synthetic slop. Everygroove in his cortex demanded he vomit the superficial bullshit he ingested all out in front of her. Shame, shock, and hatred clotted his heart as one.

“What’s wrong?” Elle asked.

“What does your boyfriend like to do?” David ignored her.

“Oh. Um, he runs like I said earlier. He loves to write stories, he loves anime and manga, he-”

“Plays shooting games, owns a 1986 Chevy Corvette, walks the Kevington Bridge at midnight, is 6’2 and loves Chinese Food.”

“Correct…How did you-”

“As for you, your true name is Leah. 5’3. African American. Glasses and a puffed afro. Green’s your favorite color. Twinkies are your go-to. Your brother, Ricky, is an alcoholic bandit. You work as a hostess. Chinese tattoo on your spine.” David stepped closer. “And pottery is one of your favorite hobbies.”

“…Correct,” Leah’s warm gaze mutated into an unsettled glare. “Have we met before?”

“What the hell are you?!” David roared, causing Leah to jump back. “Every single thing you have said about your “boyfriend” about yourself, just in general, it’s all shit that I like! Shit that I wrote in this dumb-ass story,” David surged forward. Leah’s feared to move.

“…S-So are you a hacker? Do you want money? That’s why you’re fucking with me to this degree, right?”

“You’re scaring me.”

David’s fists clenched hard enough to rupture skin, the tension seeping through his fingers. His jaw was locked, his grimace twisted, blended between outrage and something deeper—loathing.

“You’re not real,” he whispered. “You’re either a hack or some demon. And I don’t know which scares me more. I can’t trust a fucking thing you say to-”

“Stop it! I don’t have a clue where you got that from. I don’t have a clue what got into you. AI? Construct? I have skin and bones and I need to breathe. What are you talking about?

“I made YOU. I wrote all of this. Your story is engineered! Your boyfriend was engineered! Every single thing you’ve said to me is on this phone, on this app, verbatim! You…you are not real. You can’t be,”

“That’s crazy! That makes no sense” Leah shouted. “He’s real, asshole! He held me at my father’s funeral, he bought this necklace for me at the beach! He…he was gentle with me during my first time. All the most intimate parts of my life were shared with him!”

“You want proof?

“Get that away from me!”

“Read it!” David saw Leah’s horror and caught himself. “Please, read it,” The phone slipped into Leah’s hands. David slouched to the ground.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. “ I—I shouldn’t have snapped. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Maybe I’m hallucinating. Maybe none of this is real. But your boyfriend’s name, it’s mine. I used it when talking to you because I didn’t want to be me.” His eyes glistened with pain. “I used it before on an adult site, reposting shit I regret. I Spent endless nights escaping into fantasies when I should’ve reached out to people who cared. But I didn’t. I isolated myself from friends, from family—people who would’ve loved me if I let them.”

Leah’s face was green, observing the screen. As spoken, her words actions and moments were visually and orally catalogued on David’s android . “Leah…that boyfriend is just a character I made for you. I wanted to be someone else. Someone stronger. Kinder. Someone who made you laugh. I’m sorry. If you somehow are what I think you are now, I’m just sorry for all of this.

Leah buried her face in her hands. “But if this story we built—me and you, if any of it is true then I just hope I can live up to that version. Just a fraction.”

A long breath. “I’m sorry for that. You’ve been nothing but kind to me-”

Leah shoved the phone in his face, her fingers brushing his without meaning to. David took it, eyes heavy with remorse, and didn’t say a word. Leah didn’t either. She turned toward the motel entrance, and he followed without protest.

Under flickering lights and peeling wallpaper, Leah approached the front desk, paid for both rooms with a quiet nod, and handed him a key. No questions asked. No thanks returned. Just a mutual ache carried between them.

They walked the hall side by side, slow and unspoken, as if the silence had grown too sacred to break. Two doors. Adjacent. Waiting.

Leah stopped short of her room number. Her voice was quiet, but steady. “I only read the last entry,” she said, eyes locked to the door. “The one where I was at the hospital, watching my brother get his stomach pumped with my boyfriend. Every action written down, every piece of dialogue. I can see it clearly as day. The sound of my crying. My boyfriend was humming that song I love so much to calm me down. Me praying to God for a miracle. Though you’re not lying, those moments aren’t just words in an app. They happened.

She turned to him, eyes fierce. “And if what you’re saying is true... then that would make all of that fake. I don’t accept that,” she said, voice rising. “I’m real now after all. And I don’t feel like a machine.

Her grip tightened. “And if my boyfriend was just a role, then someone had to have been behind that personality.”

David didn’t move.

His eyes stayed glued to the floor, as if searching for meaning in dust and linoleum. The weight of everything—fantasy, memory, loss—pressed into his chest like a stone.

Leah stepped closer, voice firmer now. “David. Look at me.”

He hesitated, then raised his head slowly. Her gaze met his full-on—bruised, unwavering, alive.

“I’m not sure of anything right now. Not completely. But I know what I feel. I know what I’ve experienced. And I know I still don’t want you to be alone.”

David’s breath hitched.

“David, I’ll say it again. I am real. And if you were the one who made my boyfriend, maybe you were the one I was looking-”

David collapsed into her arms, his grief, regret, and longing, cascading over Leah as a wave that hits a coastline. “I’m so utterly confused,”

“We can deal with that confusion together,”

“And I’m not the one you’re looking for, Leah. I am not a fitness instructor. I’m not even employed right now. I’m not the upstanding man you fell in love with. It was a character I made up.”

Leah tenderly rubbed David’s back. “It doesn’t have to stay that way. I mean, I didn’t stay a character, apparently. You poured your regrets into him, your ambitions, your best ideas of who you could be. Maybe they haven’t happened yet, but they came from you. And now they can become you. One day at a time.” Leah slid her key into the lock, yawning, neck and shoulders weighty. “It’s definitely past 4AM by now. Let’s talk later, ok?”

David nodded. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Morning came tepidly for David after such a chaotic night.

He stirred from sleep, the hollow hum of the motel A/C whispering into stillness. He knocked once on Leah’s door. No response. He tried again—nothing.

A folded piece of paper lay where her bag had been.

Inside: a phone number. An address.

He exhaled, checked out, and ordered breakfast he barely touched. An Uber rolled in. The driver didn’t ask questions. David didn’t offer answers. The car was still parked where he’d left it, untouched, as if frozen in time.

He drove home slowly, every mile a buffer against yesterday’s chaos. His apartment greeted him in its usual mess: laundry on chairs, fridge coughing up expired leftovers.

But he did not collapse.

He cleaned, starting with the refrigerator.

Because today, at least, he hadn’t fallen apart. He hadn’t chased ghosts. He hadn’t spiraled.

And somewhere between wiping a counter and tossing spoiled yogurt, he opened his inbox.

One unread message:

“Interview invitation: Fitness Instructor – 10AM, Monday.”

David stared at it. Then stood taller.

He didn’t know what to feel. But maybe not knowing was its own quiet form of hope.