And I don’t know if I want him to.
Or if I’m already waiting for it.
I don’t look back.
I tell myself I won’t give him that.
I won’t look over my shoulder and check if the car is still there, if the engine’s still purring like a threat with patience,if he’s watching me through the black-glass windows with that expression — the one that doesn’t ask for anything but waits for everything, like he knows it’s already his.
I won’t look.
But my whole body wants to.
My muscles ache with it, like they’ve been clenched for days, like they’re sore from pretending I’m still free.
Like every step forward costs something I’ll never get back.
The streets blur.
The shopfronts don’t register. People walk past me in coats and boots and conversations I can’t hear because all the noise in my head is him.
His voice.
His hook.
The way he didn’t kiss me — but almost did.
The way he spoke like he was narrating my sins back to me, slow and low and deliberate, like he knew they weren’t confessions — they were invitations.
And I answered.
God, I answered.
I still am.
Because my feet keep walking and my legs keep moving and my head keeps turning, not enough to be obvious, just enough to feel it, that pull like a tether that’s not wrapped around my wrist but somewhere deeper — around my ribs, maybe, around my throat, somewhere soft and internal and too late to cut loose without tearing something vital.
I tell myself I’m just going to the shop.
I tell myself I need milk. Cigarettes. Soap.
Anything that sounds normal.
Anything that doesn’t sound like I’m running from something invisible and headed straight for something worse.
But when I get to the corner, I don’t turn.
I keep walking.
Keep drifting.
Like a girl waiting to be found.
And then I hear it.
The door.
The soft click of a car opening behind me.
