Meet me tonight. Or lose him forever.
These words haunted her as she lay in tangled sheets long after Chris left. Her silk robe had slipped to the floor, leaving her pale skin burning with his heat.
Outside, the city breathed. Inside her, something louder throbbed — a hunger for which she had no name.
It was not only for him anymore. It was for the version of him that had once made her whole.
Chris had changed. Four years ago, his touch was her salvation; now, it was her prison. His lips used to claim her with reverence; now, they grazed her skin like obligation. His hands had once been worship; now, they were silent, absent, or distracted.
She rolled onto her side, eyes locked on the cracked mirror across the room. Her reflection stared back, pale and tired, lips parted in an unspoken question. She wasn't the same girl who had met him years ago. She was stiffer and quieter. Her body still remembered him, but cold ash weighed down her heart.
The memory of those early days was sharp in her mind.
They had been intoxicating. They had been reckless.
She remembered the night it began—a stormy evening with flickering streetlights. Their hands brushed by accident, and a spark shot across her skin. He had leaned closer, his breath warm and his voice low. "Sorry," he'd murmured, but she remembered the hunger behind the apology. She had walked away then, but not without leaving her mark on him.
For four years, they were the couple everyone envied. Laughter spilling into lecture halls. Kisses that tasted of sin and forever. Nights where his mouth lingered on her skin until her breath broke in trembling shudders.
Fire and need carved their intimacy.
Chris knew how to touch her. Not only her body — her soul. He knew her skin's language: how it responded to his fingers and bent under his lips. Their first time was proof.
It happened in a forgotten corner of campus.
Fear and hunger tangled in her veins the night he pressed her against the desk. His lips devoured her until she forgot herself. Every thrust was slow, deliberate, claiming. His voice — a low prayer between moans — whispered her name. Her body burned, her knees shook, and something inside her fractured.
That memory still branded her skin.
But now? Chris ignored her. His hands were elsewhere. His lips were elsewhere. Even when they slept together, it felt mechanical. A practiced act, stripped of passion, stripped of presence.
His absence became its own cruelty.
She longed for his attention. But he traded her warmth for work — hours lost in coding, stock trades, and endless gaming. Nights became silent. Calls went unanswered. "I'm busy. You're messing with my signal," he said once, the words cutting sharper than betrayal.
She tried to tell him she needed more — not diamonds, not grand gestures — but him. But he twisted her words into flaws. "You're too needy." "You always want attention." "You knew who I was before you said yes."
So she learned to shrink. To silence herself until her voice became a memory.
Her body still craved him. Her heart stopped wanting him.
Numbness was a poison. It crept in slow, quiet, and permanent. Chris didn't yell. He didn't cheat in obvious ways. He cheated with absence, neglect, and silence that roared louder than any argument.
She lay in his arms at night. Her skin remembered his slow, claiming, worshiping touch, but her heart stayed numb.
And yet… the sex was still intense.
Too intense. The kind that left her breathless, aching, shaking. That made her forget her own name. His hands were still strong, knowing how to find every nerve ending that belonged to her. But after the passion, after the heat, came the silence — cold and empty.
She needed more than his body's weight. She required his presence. She needed him to choose her.
She missed herself. The girl who laughed without hesitation. The girl who had friends she confided in. The girl who once called Greene at midnight to breathe and laugh. But Chris didn't like Greene. He didn't want her to have anyone who wasn't him. Piece by piece, she cut her world until only he remained.
And now… even he wasn't there.
That hurt more than anything.
Sometimes, she lay beside him. Her fingertips brushed his sleeping face as she wondered: Is this love? To feel his touch but never hold him?
Every kiss made her body remember what to burn, but her heart remained frozen.
She lay awake now, robe slipping further, fingertips trailing over the sheet. Her phone buzzed again.
She froze. Her breath hitched.
It was another message.
"Tonight. Don't be late."
Her pulse thundered. Her fingers trembled as she read the words over and over. The air in her room became thicker, heavier.
Her body ached with something she couldn't name — desire, fear, curiosity.
Somewhere deep in her, a fire broke free.
And somewhere else… a voice whispered in her ear. Not Chris's.
She didn't know who was calling her that night. But she knew it wasn't an invitation to peace. It was a call to danger.
Somewhere in the dark, someone was waiting.
And Chris… he would never let her go without a fight.
She pressed her palm over her chest. Her breath caught. Somewhere in her bones, something shifted.
Tonight would change everything.
Her phone buzzed again—another message.
"Be ready. He won't let you walk away."
Her lips curled into a smile that was half fear, half promise. She didn't know if she was ready. But she knew she would go.
Because some fires demand attention
And hers… was waking up.