It’s not the kind of love I can name out loud yet. Not the kind that fits into clean, easy words. But I feel it in the way my heart panics every time the elevator doesn’t open. I feel it in the way my whole body aches for him, like it’s forgotten how to be calm without him near.
I didn’t even know someone like me could feel this much.
But I do.
I love him.
And the idea of losing him, the idea of driving him away because I reacted on instinct, because of my trauma—it’s unbearable.
I stare at the clock one more time.
3:57 a.m.
It’s like the numbers taunt me.
I can’t sit here any longer. My chest feels too tight, and my thoughts won’t stop looping. I stand up slowly, stiff from sitting on the floor so long, and make my way upstairs.
The hallway feels colder somehow, lonelier. Every step feels heavier than the last.
I push open the door to his bedroom. The scent of him lingers in the air, something dark, clean, and achingly familiar; it nearly undoes me.
The lights in the huge bathroom flicker on as I step inside.
I catch sight of myself in the mirror, and I almost don’t recognize the person staring back. My eyes are red-rimmed and hollow, my cheeks tear-stained, my hair a curly mess. I look like something broken.
And maybe I am.
I lean closer, fingers gripping the edge of the sink as I inhale slowly, then let it out in a deep, shaky breath. It rattles in my chest like something sharp trying to escape.
I strip off my clothes, slowly, carefully, as though shedding not just fabric but everything I’ve been feeling for the past few hours. The guilt. The fear. The unbearable silence.
The water is warm, gentle even, but it doesn’t wash away the ache lodged beneath my ribs. I scrub harder than I need to. My face. My arms. My hands. Over and over, like the friction might distract me from the gnawing worry twisting deep in my chest.
Where is he?
Is he safe?
I step out of the shower, towel off with shaking hands, and make my way into his closet, the one that’s far bigger than my entire bedroom back home. Everything inside it smells like him. Leather. Cologne.
I run my fingers over his clothes. Suits. Jackets. Coats. Rows of polished shoes, expensive watches lined in perfect rows like time itself bows to him. My fingers pause on a white button-up t-shirt, its soft and oversized.
I take it down and slip it on.
It swallows me whole, hanging loose and just past my thighs enough to cover my underwear. The sleeves drown my hands, but I don’t mind. I like it.
It makes me feel like I’m wrapped in him. Like he’s still here. Holding me.
He always likes it when I wear his clothes, even though I have some of mine here now—new ones, too, the ones he insisted on getting me when we went to the mall for Tyler’s birthday shopping, and whenever he takes me to wherever he goes.
I check the time again.
4:20 a.m.
Still nothing.
I sigh, dragging myself downstairs to the kitchen. My head feels foggy. I just need something warm, something bitter to hold onto. I reach for a mug, just as I am about to move to the coffee machine,
The elevator dings.
