Aleah's POV
Ivy had been orbiting me for weeks now — hovering with soft eyes and hesitant hellos like she was waiting for a signal I never planned to give. I ignored her. Walked past her in hallways like she was scenery. I stopped answering texts, stopped waiting for her smile in class, stopped pretending I was still soft.
It was easier this way. Cleaner.
Home wasn't any better. Conversations were like vending machines — insert two polite replies, receive silence. Even the clock ticked louder than my parents' attention.
I was alone. Fully, utterly, beautifully alone.
And loneliness has a way of sharpening you — carving out all the soft parts until only strategy remains.
Every time the ache became too much, I did things. Quiet things. Things that hurt just enough to remind me I was still here. Still feeling. Still capable of bleeding.
But tonight was different.
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the glow of my phone screen — a photo of Yasmin laughing, taken months ago, back when she still looked at me like I was delicate. My fingers hovered over the image. Something bitter curled inside me.
If she couldn't love me willingly, maybe I'd make her.
I didn't mean flowers and sweet texts — no. I meant need. Dependency. The kind of pull people mistake for love because it feels like gravity.
People fall for broken things all the time. And I could be broken — convincingly.
All I had to do was show her the cracks. Let her believe she was the only one who could fill them.
I knew how to look like glass on the verge of shattering.
I knew how to tremble just right.
I knew which words sounded like vulnerability but were really bait.
"Yasmin," I whispered to the air, practicing, sculpting the tremble in my voice. "I don't know how to be okay without you."
The plan was already forming — step by calculated step.
Because when someone thinks they're saving you, they don't notice they're the one being pulled under.
Let her drown in me.
Let her beg to stay.
And when I had her in the palm of my hand, needing me the way I used to need her…
Maybe then I'd decide whether to let her go.
Or break her back.