I don’t dry it. I don’t hide it. I don’t cover it with a cloth like I’m scared of what it might reflect next.
I just let it drip.
Let it catch the light like something holy and wrong, like an altar I didn’t mean to build but somehow know how to kneel at anyway.
And I don’t look back at it when I move through the apartment like I’m not thinking about it every second — how it waits there like a pulse, like a dare, like a part of me I didn’t know I was missing until he gave it back.
The walls feel too close.
They lean in, conspiratorial.
The air is too warm.
Too still.
I haven’t left this place in three days.
Not since him.
Not since the room.
Not since I looked into his eyes and saw the exact shade of control I’ve spent my entire life pretending I could survive.
I pull on a jacket and shoes I don’t remember buying and slide my phone into my back pocket without checking it again. If he wanted to message me, he would. If he wanted to be outside waiting for me, he would.
He doesn’t need to tell me anything anymore.
Because everything around me already speaks in his voice.
The floors creak like his laugh.
The keys in the dish jangle like the hook when it tapped the glass table between us.
The door sounds like a decision.
One I’ve already made.
I step into the hallway and pause, listening like I might hear something.
Footsteps.
Breathing.
A whisper behind the wall.
There’s nothing.
But I feel it anyway.
That pressure on my spine.
That weight in the air.
That slow, thick sense that someone’s already following — even if it’s just in my bloodstream.
I walk.
Down the stairs.
