That—that—was terrifying.Because when you’ve spent your whole life learning how to keep people at arm’s length, someone who simply reaches for your throat and demands nothing more than honesty is the most dangerous thing in the world.
I think the truth is ...I wasn’t scared of her.I was afraid of what I became in her presence.Of how her eyes burned through my defense mechanisms like they were made of tissue paper.Of how she made me want things I’d buried so deep I’d forgotten they were mine to want.I’m not talking about picket fences or wedding rings or some picture-perfect bullshit.I’m talking about the raw need to be known—every dark edge, every desperate thought, every twisted fantasy whispered in the dark.She made me crave being fucking seen.And I hated it.
She didn’t take from me like a thief.She didn’t break me down with demands or ultimatums.She just existed.And in that existence, she peeled me apart piece by piece until I barely recognized myself.
I’d look in the mirror and wonder how the hell one person could walk in, whisper my name, and suddenly the man I was meant to be was gone—replaced by someone who wanted to kneel at her feet and confess things I didn’t even know I needed to say out loud.
She didn’t ask.She didn’t have to.She just looked at me, and I gave.My body.My secrets.My fucking soul—she still owns it along with my heart.
I know how it sounds.Melodramatic.Like some overproduced B-side track with too many crescendos and not enough rhythm.But this was what I had with her ...it wasn’t just about love, and it sure as hell wasn’t about sex—though, fuck, there were nights when I’d wake up so hard and aching it felt like my bones were begging for her.
This, what we shared, was something else.Something primal.She’d look at me, and I’d become unmade—like her gaze had fingers, and they were already under my shirt, trailing down my stomach, undoing the button on my jeans with nothing more than a breath and a dare.
It was never just about touching her.It was about what happened to me the moment I wanted to.The way my pulse would crash against my skin like a storm.The way my hands would itch to grab her hips and yank her in so tight I’d feel her fucking heartbeat against mine.
The way I’d imagine her mouth on me and lose time—lose sense—lose every thread of restraint I’d ever worked so goddamn hard to build.
She made me ache for things no one believes exist, but she had them—she offered them.I took it, and in return, I gave her everything.
That’s the fucked-up part.
She didn’t demand it, yet I gave every piece.Every fragment.Every lyric that never made it to paper.
And maybe that’s why everything now feels offbeat and broken.Like the music’s still playing, but the tune is wrong.Like I’m writing songs with no riffs, no chorus, just verses made of what-ifs and regrets that taste too much like her skin.
Song?
“Black” —Pearl Jam.
Always.
Because some people aren’t just a chapter in your life.
They’re the throughline, the goddamn prelude to everything, the interlude you can’t skip.The empty space between verses where the real story lives.
Where everything that matters most gets lost ...and refuses to stay buried.
ChapterTwenty
Kit
May 2nd, 1997
I stare at the chat, eyes locked on his words like they’ve taken hold of me, like the screen is pulling me into him, tethering me to something I shouldn’t want this badly.His message isn’t just a paragraph typed in the digital blur of night.
This is a confession, a slow bleed, a goddamn love letter to someone who clearly never left his soul.This could be a song with lyrics so jarring it’d break everyone’s heart right when the chorus started, just before anyone knew how it ended.
I read it once—barely breathing—then read it again, slower, letting it sink in, letting each syllable graze some place in me that had been dormant for so long I didn’t realize how starved I was.
Then I read it again.Because there’s something about how he talks abouther—the rawness, the ache behind every word, and the way he doesn’t try to hide the pain or package it into something neat and poetic.He just lays it all out.
The ruin.
The need.
The fucked-up beauty of loving someone so deeply that they become part of your DNA.
The love this man has for that woman ...it’s not just deep, it’s devastating.It’s not soft.It’s not kind.It burns through any defenses you thought you had and leaves you craving more, even when it hurts so much you think you might die.
