After We Wilted

Two sad boys. Two broken hearts. One lie that feels like the only truth they've ever known.

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In a city draped in fog and funeral hymns, two men - grief-worn, grudge-held, and emotionally barricaded - find themselves bound by a lie more convincing than either of them dares admit: they're in love.

Soren doesn't believe in softness. Since his girlfriend's tragic death, he's been drifting, calcified into something cruel, obsessive, and utterly alone. He's the kind of man who'd rather destroy something good than watch it leave. And when the feelings he keeps buried start pointing at Jude, he tightens the screws instead of facing the truth.

Jude doesn't believe in futures. He's a yearner too afraid to reach. A soul stitched together with apologies and art he'll never show. With a failed relationship behind him and too many secrets to keep, he's become a man who flinches when touched too gently and lives like a cautionary tale. Quiet, sardonic, and soft only for those closest to him , he writes poems he'll never share and looks at Soren like he wants him to ruin him.

When a twist of cruel necessity forces them into a fake relationship, the lie begins as a shield. Just until the storm passes. Just until people stop asking questions. But what starts as performance becomes a mirror - cracking, splintering, reflecting truths neither of them are ready to hold.

Not love. Not yet. But something raw. Something ruinous.

Something real.


A story of rot and yearning, After We Wilted is a slow-burning descent into grief, guilt, and reluctant desire where even the most closed-off hearts might learn to beat again, if only by breaking.