"Her skin still remembered his touch."
Bella lay on her bed, fingers grazing the curve of her arm as if trying to summon the memory. Her phone rested on her chest, its screen dim, but her mind was alive with the ghost of him.
Two weeks had passed since the abortion, but time didn't move. It sat—thick, cruel, unmoving. Her body was healing, they said, but it didn't feel like healing. Some mornings she woke dizzy, her stomach sour and tight.
Other nights, cramps twisted through her like punishment. Waves of nausea curled her into herself, and she whispered, Stop. Please stop.
Her breasts still felt tender. Her back throbbed in dull reminders. Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she still tasted the pills dissolving on her tongue.
The bleeding had slowed, but the silence afterward felt worse. It was the quiet of something gone, the kind that left space inside her where life used to hum.
Her mother moved around the house with quiet footsteps and quieter eyes. They hadn't spoken since the abortion. The air between them carried words unsaid, resentment folded into politeness.
That evening, Bella sat on the edge of her bed, trying to breathe through another cramp. The pain came in small, sharp bursts. Her phone glowed on the bedside table. For a moment, she thought of texting Chris, but what would she say? I'm hurting again? I can't sleep? I miss you?
She couldn't remember the last time she said something real to him. Their conversations had grown hollow. Check-ins and emojis replaced words that once meant something.
She scrolled through their old messages and then paused on a voice note he sent weeks ago. His voice was low, teasing, and full of want.
She tapped the conversation and watched the messages scroll by:
"Baby, I miss you." "Send me a picture of your smile." "Damn, if you were here right now, I'd pin you against the wall and taste every part of you."
She could almost feel the weight of his tone against her skin, the intimacy of words meant for no one else. Back then, every message had felt like a secret pulse between them, a thread that made her tremble and laugh at once. The heat in her skin was not only memory; it was hunger, a hollow ache she couldn't name. She remembered his touch: soft at first, then fierce. Low murmurs that made her knees weaken. Whispers of her name until it became a prayer.
She scrolled further, finding another voice note. His voice was rough and husky. "You don't even know what I'm going to do when I see you. You'll beg me to stop. And I won't."
The memory pulled her under like a tide. She closed her eyes, clutching the pillow to her chest, as though it could take his place.
The girl in those messages—laughing, teasing, alive—wasn't here anymore. This Bella was hollow; something inside her twisted. Those same words burned. They felt like ghosts of a love that had stopped breathing.
Her phone buzzed.
Chris.
She inhaled, pressing accept. "Hey," she whispered.
"Hey, babe," his voice came easy, casual. Too casual.
Her heart lifted and sank all at once. "How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. How about you?"
That simple question hit harder than it should have. How about you? She wanted to scream that she was bleeding, that her body still shook at night, and that her heart felt scraped raw. But all she said was, "I'm… okay."
There was a pause.
"Babe, you sound tired," he said. "Are you resting?"
"Resting?" Her laugh came brittle. "I can't even close my eyes without remembering everything."
"Bella, please don't start," he sighed. "I've had a long day. I'm only calling to check on you."
Something broke then. Her voice trembled. "Do you even care about me, Chris? After everything that's happened, do you even care?"
"Of course I care," he said. "Why would you ask that?"
"Because you disappeared!" Her voice cracked. "You weren't there. You didn't call. You didn't even ask how I was doing when—" She swallowed, her voice falling to a whisper. "When it happened."
He exhaled into the receiver. "Bella, I told you, I've been busy. You know how my schedule is."
"Busy?" The word came out sharp and bitter. "You keep saying that like it's a shield. I was in pain, Chris. Real pain. I thought I was dying, and you were too busy?"
His tone hardened. "You think I didn't care? You think I wasn't hurting too? You act like I don't have my own problems."
"Your problems?" she said, her voice rising. "I was alone, Chris! I took the pills myself. I bled. I couldn't move. My mother wouldn't even look at me. And you—" her throat closed.
"You vanished. You left me to deal with it like it was nothing."
"Bella… I'm across the ocean. You think it's easy for me?" His tone was dismissive.
She closed her eyes, trembling. "It's not about easy, Chris. It's about care. About being there when it counts. But you… you disappeared until it was convenient for you."
"Convenient?"
"Yes," she whispered, voice breaking. "Convenient for you to check in. It's convenient for you to act like I'm fine when I'm not. Do you even know what I've been through?"
Silence.
She wiped at her tears. "Say something."
"I don't know what else to say, Bella," he murmured finally.
His voice hardened. "You think I wasn't hurting too? Bella, I'm doing what I can from here. What else do you want me to do?"
She pressed her palms against her face, trembling. "I want you to be here. I want you to see me, to feel what I feel, to know what it's like to wake up broken."
He was quiet.
The flatness of his tone hollowed her out.
Her voice softened, breaking. "Then maybe I need a break."
There was a pause. A heartbeat. Then his reply came—quiet, detached. "Okay. If that's what you want."
She froze. "What?"
"You said you need a break. Fine. There are better guys than me anyway. You're beautiful. You'll always have a queue of men waiting for you. You'll be fine."
Her breath caught. Better, guys? It hit like a slap. "Am I a joke to you?" she whispered. "Is that all I am to you, someone you can replace?"
He didn't answer.
Tears blurred her vision. She hung up, her hand trembling. Then she screamed—a sound ripped from her chest, raw and shaking. She screamed until she couldn't breathe. Until her body ached again. Until everything blurred into dark, wet silence. She curled up on the bed, her heart thrashing in her chest. Every sob made her stomach clench. Every tear reminded her of what she'd lost. It wasn't only the child but also the version of herself that once believed love could save her.
The phone buzzed again.
Her breath hitched.
Adrian.
The name glowed on the screen like a forbidden prayer.
Her hands trembled. She had blocked him last week. How was he still calling?
For a second, she couldn't move. His name alone reopened wounds she thought had healed. Adrian had always been a storm, the kind that ruined and revived in equal measure. His touch had been danger, his voice the kind of sin that made her forget her name.
Chris isn't who you think he is, Adrian had told her once. He'll leave you broken.
And now, Chris had proved him right.
Tears slipped down her cheeks again. Her thumb hovered over the green button.
She knew she shouldn't answer. She knew this would only pull her deeper into the fire she had escaped. But loneliness had a voice, and it whispered Adrian's name.
Her chest rose and fell. Her body remembered the heat, the thrill, and the safety that somehow came with him. But her mind screamed no—screamed that she couldn't go back.
Yet the phone kept ringing.
Her heart pounded so loud it drowned out reason.
When the call finally stopped, the silence was worse than the ringing. She stared at the screen, her reflection staring back—pale, hollow-eyed, lips trembling.
She dropped the phone beside her and clutched her chest. Her body ached, not only from the aftershocks of the pills but also from the emptiness of rejection.
Her mother's words echoed from days before: Let him send the money. Let him pay.
Bella pressed her hand against her belly—that quiet, empty place that once held hope. Her eyes burned. "There's nothing left to pay for," she whispered.
She lay there for hours, between waking and sleep, where memory bled into dream. In that fragile space between memory and grief, she could almost hear them both. She could hear Chris's indifference pulling one way. Then, Adrian's forbidden promise pulled the other.
By dawn, her pillow was damp, her heart hollow, and her phone silent.
The world outside stirred with the first noise of morning, but Bella didn't move. Her tears had dried, but something else had begun to grow in their place—a small, cold resolve.
If love could burn this deep, then she'd learn to rise from the ashes.