I type nothing back. Just press my thumb to the screen like maybe he’ll feel it.
Then my eyes find all the messages from Blake.
He doesn’t know it’s me. He knows me asPandora.
The woman I built out of fragments part fantasy, part ghost, part everything I used to be before he broke me.
His name glows on the screen like a warning.
“Can’t stop thinking about you.”
“Didn’t sleep last night.” “You do something to me, Pandora.”
I read them over and over, pulse hammering. Every word feels like a blade wrapped in honey.
This isn’t the Blake I married. That man was sharp edges and ego; charm polished for public view. He loved the reflection of himself in my eyes, not me. ButthisBlake the one pouring his heart out to a stranger online he’s softer. Needier. Almost…human.
He tellsherthings he never told me.
He says he feelsseen.
Wanted.
Understood.
And it kills me.
Because it’smehe’s talking to.
It’s always been me. Only now, he doesn’t know it.
I try to tell myself this is just research, just an experiment for the article but I know that’s a lie. This is punishment. Revenge. Curiosity. All tangled together until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
I type slowly, fingers trembling.
You sound tired. Rough night?
He replies almost instantly.
Couldn’t sleep. Kept thinking about you. About us.
Us.
The word punches through me like air too sharp to swallow.
I glance at my call log. My texts.
Three unread messages toBlake, my husband, my ghost the real him.
He hasn’t answered in weeks. But he’s been messagingherfor hours.
I want to scream.
I want to ask him whysheis worth his words when I’m not. But instead, I stay behind the mask.
‘Maybe you should try closing your eyes for once. Stop running from the dark. It’s softer than you think.’
He sends a voice note this time, low, rough, the sound of a man unravelling.
