My breath stutters.
I don’t type.
I don’t deny it.
I just stare until the words blur.
Another message follows, slow, deliberate.
That’s what I hate the most.
My fingers curl around the phone before I can stop myself. My hands are slick with sweat, the screen smudging under my grip.
“What do you want from me,” I whisper aloud, my voice hoarse and cracking.
As if summoned by the sound, the reply appears.
I want you to stop pretending this can end without blood.
A sob tears out of me, raw and unfiltered. I press the phone to my chest like it might crawl inside and finish the job.
“I’m so tired,” I breathe. “I’m so fucking tired.”
The typing bubble appears.
Disappears.
Appears again.
I know.
That’s what finally breaks me.
Not the threat.
Not the control.
Not even the inevitability humming under his words.
The knowing.
I fold forward, forehead hitting my knees, shoulders shaking as I cry so hard it feels like my ribs might cave inward. This isn’t pretty. It isn’t dramatic. It’s the sound of something giving up ground inch by inch.
I don’t answer him.
I don’t block him.
I just let the phone slip from my hand and hit the floor again, screen-up, still alive, still waiting.
Somewhere down the hall, a door slams.
Noah is still in the house.
That realisation crawls over my skin like ants.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand and force myself to stand again, every movement heavy, deliberate, like I’m walking through wet cement.
Whatever happens next, it won’t be quiet.
