I don’t reply.
Can’t.
Not yet.
I drag myself into the shower and try to scrub the feeling of him off my skin, but it doesn’t work. I still feel him everywhere. In the curve of my spine. The bruises on my thighs. The way my chest rises and falls.
By the next day, I can’t eat.
By the day after, I can’t sleep.
Every time I reach for my phone, I see his name and my stomach flips so hard it feels like I’m on a roller coaster made of razor blades.
Iwantto talk to him.
But wanting him now feels wrong. Dirty. Like I’m betraying something sacred. Something I didn’t even know I had.
Butnotwanting him?
That’s worse.
It’s unbearable.
I try to film. I set up the lights, check the camera, and log in. But the second I go live, I know it’s pointless.
The words feel fake in my mouth. My skin doesn’t want to be touched. I don’t want to flirt. I don’t want to tease. I don’t wantthem.
I wanthim.
Ten minutes in, I shut it down and pretend it was a tech issue. Anything but the truth.
And the truth is—I’m heartbroken in a way I didn’t know I could be.
Every part of me aches for him. Not just his body, but his laugh. His voice. The way he touches me like I’m real. The way he listens.
I see him in everything.
The leftover coffee he likes.
The hoodie he left in my laundry.
The song that plays in the background while I scroll through my camera roll and accidentally see the photo of us he took the night after laser tag—me in his lap, grinning.
God, I miss him.
I reach for my phone. Almost text him, but I don’t. A new sob wrings out of me and I press my face into a pillow. I don’t even know how long I stay like that.
Eventually, I do the only thing I can think of.
I call Lorna.
She answers on the second ring. “What’s up, baby girl?”
But one sniff from me and she softens instantly.
“Oh no,” she breathes. “What happened?”
I tell her. All of it.
