He prided himself on restraint.
Restraint was what separated him from impulse, from chaos, from the people who acted first and thought later. He watched others stumble through their feelings, reckless and exposed, and told himself he was better than that. His control was proof of discipline. Proof of depth.
At least, that was the story he repeated.
Outwardly, nothing had changed. He still moved through his days with practiced ease, still spoke when spoken to, still laughed at the right moments. No one would have guessed that his mind was constantly recalibrating—adjusting to her movements, her absences, her unpredictability.
He learned to mask the tension well.
When she was near, he felt balanced, as if the world had aligned itself correctly. When she wasn't, that balance wavered. Not dramatically—no outbursts, no visible cracks—but subtly, like a structure slowly losing its foundation. He began to notice how much effort it took to remain unaffected.
That realization unsettled him.
He tested himself, briefly. Forced his attention elsewhere. Focused on conversations that had nothing to do with her, tasks that demanded precision. It worked—for a while. But even then, his thoughts curved back, inevitably, as if drawn by a force he could delay but not escape.
It wasn't dependency, he insisted. It was orientation.
Everyone needed something to anchor them.
He started to frame his fixation as balance rather than obsession. She grounded him. Gave shape to his days. Without that focus, things felt scattered, meaningless. Surely that meant something good. Something necessary.
Yet cracks began to show in quieter moments.
He caught himself reacting to information that involved her—changes in her routine, unexpected absences—with an intensity that didn't match the situation. His mind raced ahead, constructing explanations before facts could catch up. None of them were kind.
Someone had interfered. Something had gone wrong. She had been careless.
Each assumption carried a sharp edge he hadn't noticed before.
He forced himself to slow down, to breathe through the surge of unease. This was exactly why control mattered. Why emotion needed supervision. If he stayed calm, stayed patient, nothing would spiral.
Still, the effort grew heavier.
One evening, he realized he had begun arranging his time around the possibility of encountering her—not seeking her out directly, but positioning himself where chance might favor him. He told himself it was coincidence. Optimization. Harmless adjustment.
After all, he wasn't crossing boundaries.
The thought should have reassured him. Instead, it lingered.
Because somewhere beneath the logic, a quieter truth stirred: he wasn't reacting to her anymore. He was anticipating her. Planning for her. Making space for a version of the world that revolved a little more tightly around her presence.
And the more he adjusted, the more normal it felt.
That was the most dangerous part—not the longing, not the tension, but the ease with which it settled into his routine. Like a habit formed slowly enough to go unnoticed.
He went to sleep that night convinced he was still in control.
But control, he was beginning to learn, didn't disappear all at once.
It eroded—patiently, silently—until one day there was nothing left to hold onto but the illusion of balance he had built around her.