The plate sat untouched on the counter where I'd left it this morning, hours ago, a lifetime ago.
Waiting.
Just like me.
"Fuck this," I muttered, throat burning with unshed tears.
I reached past the sandwich and grabbed the bottle of wine instead, the glass cold and slick against my palm. I didn't bother with a glass this time. The first swallow was sour and sharp, burning all the way down. The second went easier. By the third, I'd stopped tasting it at all.
A hot flash tore across my thigh.
I hissed through my teeth, hand gripping the counter hard enough to hurt.
Another scratch. Deeper this time, cutting through denim and skin like neither mattered. My knees almost buckled.
"Fine," I whispered to the empty apartment, to whatever watched from the corners, to the ghosts that owned more of me than I did. "Fine. Take your pound of flesh. I'll write."
I went back to the laptop. Wine. Words. Whispers. Repeat.
Time folded in on itself, losing meaning. It was afternoon now—pale sunlight trying to crawl through the blinds like something unwelcome, like it knew it didn't belong in this cold, haunted space. My eyes burned. My bones ached. Thathollow beneath my ribs grew wider and wider until it felt like I might fall into it and never climb out.
Where is he?
The question circled endlessly, a vulture waiting for something to die.
The silence became a sound of its own. A roar. A storm inside my head drowning out everything else. Drogo never vanished. He stormed, he sulked, he brooded in that quiet, intense way of his—but he didn't disappear. Not from me. Never from me.
Unless he wanted to.
Unless that night… meant more to me than it did to him.
Unless he'd finally figured out what I was—a burden wrapped in pale skin and bad dreams, a woman haunted by things she couldn't escape, couldn't explain, couldn't even fully understand—and decided he was done being the shield for my monsters.
I stood again, the movement jerky, uncoordinated. The empty wine bottle dangled from my fingers.
Kitchen. Sandwich. Same plate. Same patience.
I stared at it for a long moment, vision blurring at the edges.
A fresh line of fire slashed across my wrist.
That one broke me.
The scream ripped out of me before I knew it was coming—raw, hoarse, scraped up from somewhere deep and animal. Angry. Exhausted. Done.
The bottle left my hand and shattered hard against the wall.
Glass exploded like a gunshot. Red wine bled down the white paint in slow, accusing rivulets, spreading like wounds, like proof of something breaking that couldn't be fixed. Istared at it for a second, chest heaving, watching the destruction I'd caused with my own hands.
Then I sank to the floor amid the shards.
The tile was cold under my legs, grounding in its discomfort. My hands covered my face. I shook—great, wracking sobs tearing through my chest until it hurt to breathe, until my throat was raw and my ribs ached from the force of it.
"Where are you?" I choked out into my palms, voice breaking into pieces. "Drogo, where the fuck are you?"
The words echoed in the empty kitchen, unanswered.
A thousand answers spiraled through my head, each one worse than the last.
