She’s curious.
And maybe that’s worse.
I dry my face with a shaking towel and drop it to the floor like it doesn’t matter anymore, because it doesn’t. Clean doesn’t fix this. Cold water doesn’t reach deep enough to strip him out of me.
Because it’s too late.
He’s already in.
I sit on the bathroom floor again. Not out of weakness.
Out of surrender.
A different kind.
The kind where you stop pretending that reality is something you’re in control of. The kind where you acknowledge, even if only in your own head, that someone else is driving now — and they’ve already decided where this ends.
I reach for the phone again.
Same number. Still unnamed. Still not saved. But it stares at me like it’s waiting, and I know — I know — he’s waiting too.
He hasn’t messaged me since that last line.
He doesn’t have to.
I’ve done everything for him.
Searched his name. Found his thread. Looked into the mouth of the beast and didn’t flinch. Not really. Not the way I should have.
I unlock the phone. Pull up the thread again. Scroll back to the post.
I sit with it.
She’ll come to him. They always do.
I want to prove him wrong.
But I also want to know what it feels like to be right there in front of him again.
Not afraid.
Not surprised.
Ready.
Ready for what he’ll say. What he’ll do. What he’ll take.
Not because I want to give it.
But because I want to see if I break.
Because I think he wants to find the line where I stop being a girl and start being his.
The phone buzzes.
I freeze.
Not a ring. Just a vibration. A single, soft pulse like a breath against the side of my neck.
