I pace the room like a trapped animal, bare feet over broken glass, the sting sharp enough to ground me. The mirror is still cracked where I threw the necklace—its pieces spiderwebbing across my reflection like even it doesn’t want to hold my face anymore. I stare at myself, at the hunger buried beneath defiance, at the bruise-shaped shadows under my eyes, the pink lip gloss I smeared on hours ago like armour, the way my lashes clump from crying but still try to flutter like they remember how to pretend to be pretty.
Let him see.
Let him see what he did to me.
Let him see what I became for him.
I sit on the edge of the bed like it’s a stage, back straight, thighs parted just enough to whisper a promise, but not enough to give him everything. One hand skims down my throat, a slow,theatrical glide, like I’m the showgirl in a cage and I know the ringmaster is somewhere in the shadows.
I smile at nothing.
It’s not real.
None of it is.
I learnt a long time ago how to survive men like him.
You give them what they want—until they don’t know what you want anymore.
I tilt my head and let my fingers drag down between my ribs. Not touching. Just showing. Just performing. My nails leave little crescent moons in my own skin. The dress he left me in is barely that—lace, sheer in all the places that matter. I hate that it smells like him. I hate more that I keep breathing it in.
“Come on then,” I whisper to the ceiling. “Come collect your broken doll.”
But the door doesn’t move.
No footsteps.
No voice in the walls.
I hate the silence most of all.
So I perform louder.
I crawl up the bed slowly, like a siren dragging herself across the rocks, like I’m asking to be destroyed. I arch, writhe, twist in the sheets like I’m fucking the ghost of his presence. My hand hovers at the edge of sin—but doesn’t fall.
It’s not for me.
It’s never been for me.
It’s for the monster behind the glass, the one who thinks I belong to him.
Let him burn.
Let him choke on it.
Because I will shatter again.
But this time, I’ll make sure the shards hit his eyes.
The necklace is gone.
A twisted little relic of rebellion, now shattered like the girl who wore it. The cracked mirror catches the fractured light, cutting through the silence with a glint as sharp as my own fury.
I should stop.
But I don’t.
Because if he’s watching—and I know he is—then he’ll see what happens when you leave a fire untended. I don’t go still. I don’t simmer. I burn.
