Page 37 of Ashen Souls

She nodded slowly. “You miss the certainty.”

“God. That sounds pathetic.”

“No,” she countered. “It sounds human. It’s easier to want something that doesn’t ask for anything back. Especially after you almost die.”

“That’s… uncomfortably accurate.”

“Aves. Do you want to talk to someone? Like, not me? A therapist?”

“I have you.” I lifted my mug in a mock salute. “And prosecco.”

“You know I’m Team Real Boyfriend, right?” she went on. “Enough dream men. Let’s manifest a man who pays for his own therapy and knows where your cl…”

“Don’t say cl…”

“…itoris is. There. I said it.” She sipped.

“Please stop.” I shook my head, laughing despite myself.

She grinned. “Just saying.”

We changed into pajamas, slipping into faded flannels, mismatched socks, the wordless ritual of borrowing each other’s clothes without asking. Harper put on something neither of us intended to actually watch, the kind of forgettable movie that existed purely to fill the room with noise while real conversations drifted in and out around it. The prosecco slowly disappeared between us, leaving a hazy warmth low in my chest and the comfortable quiet that always came with being around her.

At some point between a half-finished joke and a scene neither of us had really been paying attention to, Harper shifted closer and curled against the arm of the couch. I tugged the blanket higher over both of us. Her breathing settled first, slow and even.

It took me a little longer, but eventually my own breathing fell into the same rhythm. The television kept murmuring to itself in the background. Outside, the city carried on with its distant hum. Cars passed somewhere down the street, voices filtered faintly from the sidewalk below. For the first time in days, sleep came easily, pulling me under before I had time to argue with it.

But somewhere in the dark, something was still waiting.

The mark on my wrist pulsed once.

12

Monday morning announced itself with a crick in my neck.

My body protested the moment I moved. A pressure pulsed behind my eyes, and a tightness had settled into my lower back. It was the cumulative toll of two weeks spent in a childhood bed that had grown foreign to my spine, topped off by a night spent twisted on a narrow couch. Apparently, being pampered by my mother had turned me soft. My student ID might say twenty-two, but my joints were currently claiming a solid eighty.

I lifted my head from the stiff armrest. My focus snapped straight to the far corner of the living room. Empty. Just a pile of clothes and shadows that stayed exactly where they belonged.

Monday was supposed to be a reset, a harsh drag back to the mundane, but my brain actively rejected the ordinary. I’d had men walk away before, leaving behind nothing more than fading text messages and bruised pride. That was ordinary. This was withdrawal. I felt… abandoned.

I wanted him inside me, to let him finish tearing me apart until nothing remained but the mess he caused.

That was the cruelest part. I had never watched him lose his grip on control the way he so effortlessly dismantled mine, a calculated punishment designed to feed me just enough to ruin me for anyone else, without ever breaking the fever.

“Just a hallucination,” I breathed into the stale morning air.

I untangled my legs from the shared blanket, peeling myself off the couch before my stiff muscles could lock up.

“Morning,” I croaked.

Behind me, Harper groaned without opening her eyes. She shifted on the cushions, squinting at me through a curtain of tangled hair.

“Why are you awake?” she demanded. “We’re in college. Mornings are illegal.”

“I have class.”

She collapsed back into the pillows, one arm thrown across her face. “Tragic. Want me to call in sick for you?”