#124

  The prayer felt different now. Before Namgyu, your conversations with God had been simple, gratitude for your family, pleas for good grades, hopes for a future husband who would love you and lead you closer to faith. Now your prayers were messy, complicated things full of contradictions that would make your youth pastor’s head spin.

  You remember you’d met him outside a coffee shop near campus, of all places. He was leaning against the glass door, chain-smoking and handing out glossy flyers for some sketchy club downtown. And your parents had been suspicious from the start. “There’s something about him,” your mother had said after their first meeting, her lips pressed into that thin line that appeared whenever she disapproved of something. “He seems… troubled.”

  But you’d seen something else. Beneath the tired eyes and the way he sometimes fidgeted when he thought no one was looking, you’d seen someone who was searching. Someone who asked the right questions, even if he didn’t have the answers. You’d convinced yourself that was enough, that love could bridge the gap between his searching and your certainty.

“Watch over him tonight, Lord,” you continued, your forehead pressed against your clasped hands. “Keep him safe from harm, from himself, from the darkness that seems to follow him.”

  The irony wasn’t lost on you. Even now, even after everything, you were still praying for him. Still hoping that somehow, some way, he would find his way back to the light you’d tried so desperately to show him.

  The first time you’d seen him use, you’d told yourself it was just marijuana. Everyone experimented in college, right? Even some of the kids from your youth group had tried it, though they’d never admit. You’d prayed about it, asked God to help you guide Namgyu away from substances that clouded his judgment and separated him from divine purpose.

  But marijuana had been just the beginning.

  “I don’t understand,” you’d said to him one night, maybe six months into your relationship. You’d found the small baggie in his jacket pocket while looking for his keys. The white powder inside had made your stomach drop. “Why do you need this?”

  He’d gotten defensive, the way he always did when you asked questions he didn’t want to answer. “You wouldn’t understand,” he’d said, snatching the baggie from your hands. “Your life is perfect. You have your little prayers and your perfect family and your perfect faith. Some of us aren’t so lucky.”

  You’d tried to explain that faith wasn’t about luck, that it was about choice, about opening your heart to God’s love. But Namgyu had looked at you like you were speaking a foreign language, like the words coming out of your mouth were incomprehensible.

  That should have been your first warning. Maybe it was, and you’d just chosen to ignore it.

   “Please, God,” you whispered now, your voice cracking slightly.        

  “Please help me understand why loving him wasn’t enough. Help me understand what I could have done differently.”

  The guilt was the worst part. Your pastor had told you that addiction was a disease, that you couldn’t love someone into recovery. But late at night, when the apartment was too quiet and the absence of his presence felt like a physical ache, you wondered if you’d given up too easily. If you’d prayed harder, loved stronger, been more patient…

  But then you’d remember the last night, the night that had finally broken something inside you that you weren’t sure could be repaired.

  He’d been gone for three days. Three days of unanswered calls and texts, of driving by his usual spots, of calling his few friends who still spoke to him. You’d been sick with worry, imagining him overdosed in some alley or arrested or worse. Your parents had begged you to stay with them, but you’d insisted on staying at the apartment in case he came back.

  When he’d finally stumbled through the door at two in the morning, you’d been so relieved you’d almost cried. Until you’d seen his eyes. Pupils dilated, movements erratic, words slurred and aggressive.

  “Where have you been?” you’d asked, and he’d laughed, a sound devoid of any humor.

  “That’s none of your fucking business,” he’d said, his voice dripping with contempt. “Is there anything to eat in this shithole?”

  You’d smelled the alcohol on his breath, seen the way his hands shook. But what had terrified you most was the stranger looking back at you from his eyes. The Namgyu you’d fallen in love with, the one who’d quoted scripture ironically but with somewhat curiosity, who’d listened to your stories about youth group with affectionate amusement, was gone.

  “I was worried about you,” you’d said, trying to keep your voice steady. “I thought something had happened.”

  “Something did happen,” he’d said, moving closer to you in a way that made your skin crawl. “I realized what a fucking joke this all is. You, me, this whole thing. You think you’re saving me? You think your little prayers and your innocent act make you better than me?”

  The words had stung, but you’d heard them before. What was new was the way he’d grabbed your arm when you’d tried to walk away, his fingers digging into your skin hard enough to leave marks.

  “Let go of me,” you’d said, your voice barely above a whisper.

  “Why?” he’d asked, his grip tightening. “Afraid I’ll corrupt your precious purity? Afraid I’ll drag you down to my level?”

  For a moment, you’d seen something in his eyes that had made your blood run cold. A potential for violence that you’d never seen before, a willingness to hurt you that went beyond words. Your heart had hammered against your ribs as you’d realized how alone you were, how far you’d let yourself drift from the people who actually cared about your wellbeing.

  “Please,” you’d whispered, and something in your voice must have gotten through to him because he’d released you suddenly, stumbling backward like he’d been burned.

  “Shit,” he’d said, staring at his hands like they belonged to someone else. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… I would never…”

  But you’d already seen the truth. You’d seen what he was capable of, what the drugs were turning him into. And you’d realized that all your prayers, all your love, all your desperate attempts to save him had only enabled him to sink deeper into a darkness that was consuming him from the inside out.

  The next morning, you’d found your jewelry box empty and several bills missing from your purse. He’d been gone when you’d woken up, and you’d known with crystal clarity that you couldn’t do this anymore.

  “Give me strength,” you prayed now, your voice steadier than it had been in weeks. “Help me forgive him, and help me forgive myself.”

  The breakup had been messy, painful in ways you hadn’t expected. Not because he’d fought for you, he’d barely seemed to register that you were serious when you’d told him it was over. But because cutting him out of your life had felt like amputating a part of yourself.

  Your parents had been relieved, though they’d tried to hide it. Your mother had made your favorite dinner and sat with you while you’d cried, stroking your hair and whispering that it was for the best. Your father had simply hugged you and said that sometimes loving someone meant letting them go.

  But letting go was easier said than done.

  The apartment still smelled like him sometimes. Cigarettes and that cologne he’d worn, the one that had been too expensive for his budget but that he’d insisted on buying anyway. His comics were still on the shelf, the ones he’d left behind in his hasty departure. You’d thought about packing them up, donating them or throwing them away, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

  Maybe some part of you was still hoping he’d come back for them. Maybe some part of you was still hoping he’d come back for you.

  “Help him find peace,” you whispered, finishing your prayer. “Help him find his way back to you, even if it’s not through me.”

  You crossed yourself and rose from your knees, your legs stiff from kneeling. The apartment felt even quieter now, the silence broken only by the hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of traffic from the street below.

  Coffee. You needed coffee, or maybe tea. Something warm to chase away the chill that seemed to have settled in your bones.

  You padded to the kitchen in your bare feet, your pajamas soft against your skin. The routine of making coffee was comforting, measuring out the grounds, filling the pot with water, pressing the button and listening to the familiar gurgle as the machine came to life.

  It was then that you heard it.

  The knocking started soft, almost tentative, like whoever was on the other side of the door wasn’t sure they wanted to be there. But it grew more insistent, more desperate, until it became a pounding that echoed through the small apartment.

  Your heart stopped.

  You knew that knock. You’d heard it a thousand times before. When he’d forgotten his keys, when he’d come home late and didn’t want to wake you, when he’d been too high to figure out how to use his key properly.

  “I know you’re in there,” his voice came through the door, muffled but unmistakable. “I can see the light. Just… just open the door, okay? I forgot something. I need to get something.”

  You stood frozen in the kitchen, your hand still on the coffee maker. This was not happening. This could not be happening. Not tonight, not after you’d finally started to feel like you were healing.

  “Please,” he said, and his voice cracked on the word. “I just need five minutes. I forgot something important.”

  The rational part of your mind, the part that sounded like your mother and your pastor and every self-help book you’d ever read, told you to ignore him. To let him knock until he got tired and went away. To protect yourself from whatever chaos he was bringing to your door.

  But the part of you that had loved him, that maybe still loved him despite everything, wanted to know what he’d forgotten. Wanted to see him, to make sure he was okay, to convince yourself that he was someone else’s problem now.

  “Go away, Namgyu,” you called out, your voice stronger than you felt. “You don’t live here anymore.”

  The knocking stopped for a moment, and you thought maybe he’d listened. Maybe he’d finally developed enough respect for your boundaries to leave you alone.

  Then it started again, harder this time.

  “Don’t be like this,” he said, his voice taking on an edge you recognized. “I’m not asking for much. Just let me get my stuff and I’ll leave. You’ll never have to see me again.”

  “You already got your stuff,” you said, moving closer to the door despite yourself. “You took everything when you left.”

  “I fucking missed something,” he said. “Something important. Something I can’t replace.”

  You pressed your forehead against the door, trying to steady your breathing. Through the peephole, you could see him swaying slightly, his hair disheveled, his clothes wrinkled like he’d been sleeping in them. Even in the dim hallway light, you could see the familiar signs, the restless energy, the way he kept shifting his weight from foot to foot, the slight tremor in his hands.

  He was high.

  “What did you forget?” you asked, though you weren’t sure why you were engaging with him at all.

  “Just… something,” he said, and you could hear the desperation creeping into his voice. “Look, I know you hate me, okay? I know I fucked up. I know I hurt you. But I’m not asking for forgiveness here. I’m just asking for five minutes to get something that belongs to me.”

  “Everything that belongs to you is already gone,” you said, but your voice lacked conviction. “I don’t have anything of yours.”

 “You’re lying,” he said, and his voice was getting louder now, more agitated. “You’re fucking lying and you know it. Just open the goddamn door!”

  The coffee maker beeped behind you, signaling that your coffee was ready. The sound seemed obscenely normal, ridiculously domestic, in the face of the chaos brewing outside your door.

  “Stop yelling,” you said. “You’re going to wake up the neighbors.”

  “I don’t give a shit about the neighbors,” he said, and you could hear him pacing now, his footsteps echoing in the hallway. “I don’t give a shit about anything except getting what’s mine.”

  This was the Namgyu you’d learned to fear, the one who emerged when the drugs took hold and stripped away everything that had made him human. The one who’d grabbed your arm that last night, who’d looked at you like you were an obstacle to be removed rather than a person he’d claimed to love.

  “Please don’t make me call the police,” you said, though you weren’t sure you’d actually do it.

  “Call them,” he said, and you could hear the bitter laugh in his voice. “Call them and tell them what? That your junkie ex-boyfriend is asking for his stuff back? That’ll go over real well.”

  You closed your eyes, trying to think. Every instinct you had was screaming at you to keep the door closed, to wait until he got tired and left. But you also knew Namgyu well enough to know that he could be incredibly persistent when he wanted something. He’d stand out there all night if he had to, pounding on the door and yelling until someone called the police anyway.

  “What did you forget?” you asked again.

  “Just… let me in and I’ll show you,” he said. “I promise I’ll be quick. I promise I won’t cause any trouble.”

  His promises had been worthless for months now, but there was something different in his voice. Something that sounded almost like the old Namgyu, the one who’d listened to your dreams about the future.

  “You’re high,” you said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I’m fine,” he said, but you could hear the lie in his voice. “I’m totally fine. Just let me in.”

  The pounding started again, more desperate now. You could hear him pressing his whole body against the door, could feel the vibration through the wood.

  “Please,” he said, and his voice broke completely. “Please, I’m begging you. I know I don’t deserve it, I know I fucked everything up, but I’m begging you. Just five minutes.”

  And then, to your horror, you heard something that made your resolve crumble completely.

  He was crying.

  Not the angry, frustrated tears of someone who wasn’t getting their way, but the broken, desperate sobs of someone who had reached the end of their rope. Through the door, you could hear him slide down to the floor, could hear the way his breathing hitched between sobs.

  “I’m sorry,” he was saying, over and over. “I’m so fucking sorry. I know I ruined everything. I know I hurt you. I know I don’t deserve anything from you. But please, please just let me get this one thing.”

  Your hand was on the deadbolt before you’d consciously decided to move. Every rational thought in your head was screaming at you to stop, to think about what you were doing, to remember why you’d ended things in the first place.

  But the sound of his crying was breaking something inside you, cracking open the careful walls you’d built around your heart over the past month.

  The deadbolt clicked open, and you heard him scramble to his feet. You undid the chain lock with shaking hands, your mind still not quite believing what you were doing.

  When you opened the door, the sight of him nearly brought you to your knees.

  He looked terrible. Worse than you’d ever seen him. His clothes were dirty and wrinkled, his hair greasy and unkempt. But it was his eyes that made your breath catch. They were hollow, desperate, with the glassy shine that meant he was definitely under the influence of something stronger than alcohol.

  He’d lost weight, you realized. His cheekbones were more prominent, his clothes hanging loose on his frame. There were dark circles under his eyes, and a cut on his lip that looked recent.

  “Jesus, Namgyu,” you whispered, and he flinched at the sound of his name.

  “Thank you,” he said, and his voice was hoarse from crying. “Thank you for letting me in.”

  He stepped past you into the apartment, and you caught a whiff of his scent, unwashed clothes, cigarettes, and something chemical that made your stomach turn. This wasn’t the Namgyu you’d fallen in love with. This wasn’t even the Namgyu you’d broken up with.

  This was someone else entirely.

  “What did you forget?” you asked, closing the door behind him but leaving it unlocked. You needed to be able to get him out quickly if things went south.

  “I’ll know it when I see it,” he said, already moving toward the bedroom. “Just… just give me a minute to look around.”

  “Namgyu, wait,” you said, but he was already disappearing down the hallway.

  You stood in the living room, your heart hammering against your ribs, listening to the sounds of him moving around in what used to be your shared bedroom. You could hear drawers opening and closing, the sound of things being moved around.

  What could he have possibly forgotten? You’d been meticulous when he’d moved out, making sure every item of his clothing, every book, every random possession had been packed up and removed. You’d even found things you’d forgotten were his, a phone charger, a coffee mug, a book of poetry that had been tucked behind your dresser.

  The coffee maker beeped again, reminding you that your coffee was getting cold. Almost without thinking, you moved to the kitchen and poured two cups, one for you, one for him. It was automatic, muscle memory from hundreds of mornings spent sharing coffee before he’d started his downward spiral.

  You’d just finished adding cream to his cup the way he liked it when you heard him coming back down the hallway. You turned to face him, the two mugs in your hands, and immediately knew that something had changed.

  His eyes were different now. Not just high, but dark in a way that made your skin crawl. There was something predatory in his gaze, something that hadn’t been there when he’d been begging at your door just minutes ago.

  “Find what you were looking for?” you asked, your voice carefully neutral.

  He stared at you for a long moment, his gaze flicking between your face and the coffee mugs in your hands. Then, slowly, he smiled.

But it wasn’t a nice smile.

  He didn’t answer your question. Instead, he moved toward you with that predatory grace you’d seen before, when the drugs made him feel invincible and dangerous. The space between you seemed to shrink as he approached, his movements deliberate and unsettling.

  Without warning, he reached out and grabbed one of the coffee mugs from your hands, his fingers deliberately brushing against yours. His skin was clammy and cold, and you instinctively pulled back from the contact.

  You watched in growing alarm as he lifted the mug to his lips, took a long sip, and then immediately spat the hot liquid across your kitchen floor. Coffee splattered against the cabinets, dark stains spreading across the white surfaces you’d scrubbed clean just yesterday.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” you demanded, staring at the mess he’d created.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, that unsettling smile never leaving his face. “Tastes like shit,” he said, dropping the mug carelessly onto the counter. “When did you start making coffee this shitty? You used to make it strong, the way I liked it.”

  “It’s late, and I don’t make coffee for you anymore,” you said, trying to keep your voice steady. “I make it for me.”

  “Right,” he said, drawing out the word like it tasted bitter. “Of course you do.”

  He was already reaching into his jacket pocket, and you felt your stomach drop as you saw what he was pulling out. A crumpled pack of cigarettes, the kind he’d smoked constantly toward the end of your relationship. The kind that had made your apartment reek of smoke and reminded you daily of his deteriorating condition.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” you said immediately, panic rising in your voice. “This is my apartment now, Namgyu. You can’t just—”

  He laughed, the sound harsh and grating in the small space. The cigarette was already between his lips, and he was flicking his lighter with practiced ease. The flame cast dancing shadows across his gaunt face, making him look almost demonic in the dim kitchen light.

  “Can’t I?” he said around the cigarette, his words slightly muffled. 

“Since when do you make the rules?”

  “Since you moved out,” you said, your voice rising. “Since you decided to throw away everything we had for whatever poison you’re putting in your body now.”

  The cigarette was lit now, and he took a long drag, the tip glowing orange in the darkness. When he exhaled, the smoke hit you directly in the face, making you cough and step backward.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” you repeated, more desperately now. “The lease says no smoking. I could get evicted. Please, just—”

  “Shut up, you fucking bitch ” he said, his voice suddenly cold and sharp. “Just shut the fuck up for five seconds.”

  He held up his free hand, palm facing you, and before you could process what he was doing, he pressed the lit end of the cigarette directly into his skin.

  The sizzle was immediate and horrifying. The smell of burning flesh hit you like a physical blow, acrid and nauseating. You watched in horror as his skin blistered and burned, the cigarette tip eating through his palm like it was paper. He didn’t even flinch. His eyes never left yours, watching your reaction with something that looked almost like satisfaction. The pain should have been excruciating, but he might as well have been pressing the cigarette into a piece of wood for all the reaction he showed.

  “You’re insane,” you whispered, backing away from him until your back hit the refrigerator. “You’re absolutely fucking insane.”

  He dropped the cigarette to the floor, grinding it under his heel without breaking eye contact. The burn on his palm was already turning an angry red, the skin raised and blistered in a perfect circle.

  “Maybe I am,” he said, his voice eerily calm. “Maybe that’s what happens when an ungrateful bitch like you decides I’m not worth saving.”

  “You need to leave,” you said, your voice shaking so badly you could barely get the words out. “Right now. Get whatever you came for and get out, or I swear to God I’ll scream loud enough for the whole building to hear.”

  “Oh, you’ll scream for your neighbors,” he said, tilting his head like he was genuinely curious. “But you won’t scream for your precious God? What happened to all that faith, sweetheart? What happened to loving your enemies and turning the other cheek?”

  The way he said ‘sweetheart’ made bile rise in your throat. It was the same endearment he’d used when you’d first started dating, when he’d whisper it against your ear. Now it sounded like a mockery, like he was throwing your shared intimacy back in your face.

  “Don’t call me that,” you warned, but he was already moving again.

He reached into his pocket with his uninjured hand, his movements deliberate and slow, like he was savoring whatever moment was about to come. When he pulled his hand back out, your world tilted sideways.

  Dangling from his fingers was a pair of underwear. Your underwear. But not just any pair, these were new, delicate, nothing like the practical cotton ones you’d always worn when you were together. These were black lace, with tiny ribbons at the sides, the kind of thing you’d bought after the breakup in some desperate attempt to feel beautiful again.

“Found what I was looking for,” he said, his voice thick with something that made your skin crawl.

  The coffee mug you’d been holding slipped from your numb fingers, shattering against the kitchen floor. The sound seemed to echo in the sudden silence, ceramic shards scattering across the linoleum like broken promises.

  “Where did you—” you started, but the words died in your throat.

  The violation of it hit you like a physical blow. He’d been in your bedroom, going through your drawers, touching your most intimate belongings. The thought of his hands on your things, searching through your underwear drawer like he had some right to be there, made you feel sick.

  “Why were you going through my things?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

  His expression changed instantly, the predatory smile vanishing and being replaced by something much darker. His eyes narrowed, and when he spoke, his voice was full of rage.

  “You want to know why?” he snarled, his grip tightening on the underwear. “Because when you were with me, you always wore those fucking granny panties. Those ugly, beige, cotton pieces of shit that covered everything. And now I’m gone and you’re pulling out this sexy lingerie bullshit?”

  He threw the underwear at you, the fabric hitting your chest before falling to the floor among the broken ceramic. You flinched as if he’d struck you, the violation of the gesture making you feel dirty and exposed.

  “Who are you fucking?” he demanded, taking a step closer to you. 

  “Huh? Who’s the bastard who gets to see you in that shit? Some clean-cut Christian boy from your church? Someone your parents would actually approve of?”

  “Nobody,” you said, but your voice came out weak and unconvincing.

  “Bullshit,” he spat. “You don’t buy underwear like that for nobody. You don’t start dressing like a whore unless someone’s paying attention.”

  The word hit you like a slap, and you felt tears starting to burn behind your eyes. This wasn’t the Namgyu you’d fallen in love with. This wasn’t even the broken, desperate man who’d been destroying himself with drugs. This was something else entirely, something cruel and vicious that had taken up residence in his body.

  “Get out,” you said, your voice stronger now. “Get out of my apartment right now.”

  “Or what?” he sneered, kicking at the broken ceramic on the floor. “You’ll call your daddy? Tell him the big bad junkie is being mean to his precious little angel?”

  “Fuck you,” you spat, the words tearing out of your throat before you could stop them. You never cursed, your parents had raised you better than that, but something about his presence in your space was bringing out a side of you that you didn’t recognize.

  “There she is,” he said, his eyes lighting up with sick satisfaction. “There’s the real you. Not the perfect little church girl act you put on for everyone else.”

  “You don’t know shit about the real me,” you shot back, your hands clenching into fists at your sides. “The real me got tired of watching you destroy yourself. The real me got tired of making excuses for a pathetic loser who chose drugs over everything else.”

  His face twisted with rage, and before you could react, he grabbed the remaining coffee mug from the counter and hurled it at the wall next to your head. You ducked instinctively as ceramic exploded against the drywall, shards raining down around you.

  “Pathetic loser?” he screamed. “I’m a pathetic loser? You’re the one who’s so desperate for attention that you’re buying slutty underwear the second I’m gone!”

  Without thinking, you grabbed the sugar bowl from the counter and threw it at him. It caught him in the shoulder, white granules scattering across the floor as the bowl shattered.

  “I bought them for me!” you screamed back. “Because for the first time in months, I wanted to feel like a woman instead of a fucking babysitter!”

  “Bullshit!” He was advancing on you now, his burned hand leaving bloody smears on whatever he touched. “You bought them for whoever you’re spreading your legs for now. Some clean-cut asshole who doesn’t know what a manipulative bitch you really are.”

  “You’re insane!” You grabbed a dinner plate from the drying rack and hurled it at his head. He dodged, and it smashed against the refrigerator. “You’re a paranoid, delusional piece of shit who can’t stand the thought that someone might actually be happy without you!”

  “Happy?” he laughed, the sound completely unhinged. “You call this happy? Living alone in this shithole, buying fancy underwear for nobody, pretending like you don’t miss what we had?”

  “What we had was toxic!” you screamed, throwing a fork at him that clattered harmlessly against the wall. “What we had was me enabling your addiction while you stole from me and treated me like garbage!”

  “I never treated you like garbage,” he snarled, grabbing a coffee mug from the counter and slamming it down so hard the handle broke off. “I fucking loved you!”

  “You loved having someone to take care of you!” You were both circling each other now like animals, the kitchen floor littered with broken dishes and spilled coffee. “You loved having someone to clean up your messes and make excuses for you and pretend like everything was fine while you flushed your life down the drain!”

  “That’s not true,” he said, but his voice was less certain now, more desperate. “That’s not fucking true and you know it.”

  “It is true!” you shouted. “And you know what the worst part is? I actually thought I could save you. I thought if I just loved you enough, prayed hard enough, you’d get clean. But you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved!”

  “I never asked you to save me!” he screamed, his face contorted with rage and pain. “I never asked for your prayers or your judgment or your perfect little Christian conscience!”

  “Then what did you ask for?” you demanded. “What did you want from me, Namgyu?”

  “I wanted you to love me!” he roared. “I wanted you to fucking love me without trying to fix me! I wanted you to accept me the way I am instead of constantly trying to turn me into someone else!”

  “The way you are is broken!” you screamed back. “The way you are is sick and destructive and—”

  You never got to finish the sentence because suddenly he was across the kitchen, his hands tangling in your hair, pulling your face toward his. His mouth crashed against yours with desperate violence, all teeth and desperation and the taste of cigarettes and something chemical that made you gag.

  You tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong, his fingers twisted in your hair so tightly that moving sent shooting pains across your scalp. His kiss was nothing like the gentle, hesitant kisses from when you’d first started dating. This was possession, domination, an attempt to reclaim something that had never really belonged to him.

When he finally released you, you stumbled backward, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. You could taste blood. Whether his or yours, you couldn’t tell.

  The look on his face made your blood run cold. His eyes were wild, pupils dilated, but there was something else there now. Something calculating and dangerous that made every instinct in your body scream at you to run.

  “You still taste the same,” he said softly, and the quiet tone was somehow more terrifying than all his screaming had been.

  You stared at him, wide-eyed, stunned into stillness. The world felt off-kilter, your breath coming in sharp, uneven bursts as your back pressed into the edge of the fridge. The ache in your scalp from where he’d yanked your hair hadn’t faded, but it was the look in his eyes that left you shaking, like he’d seen straight through your defenses and found the part of you that still wanted something from him.

  You hated yourself for it.

  “Don’t touch me,” you managed to whisper, your voice cracking mid-sentence. “Please, just—just go.”

  But the tears were already falling, hot and heavy and ugly, streaming down your cheeks in uneven lines. You weren’t crying pretty, and you didn’t care. Your nose was running, your lips trembling, your whole body shuddering from the aftermath of the argument and that violent kiss. You could taste him in your mouth, and it made you want to crawl out of your own skin.

  He didn’t back away.

  He watched you like you were a movie he’d seen a dozen times, like he already knew how this scene ended. When he stepped closer, you flinched, your hands curling into fists at your sides like you could punch the pain out of the air.

  But you didn’t move. You didn’t stop him.

  Because some sick, buried part of you still remembered what it felt like to be touched by him when things were good. Before the lies. Before the drugs. Before the nights you sat by the window waiting, praying, begging God to bring him home alive.

  That part of you still lived somewhere inside your ribcage. And she wasn’t gone yet.

  “Don’t cry like that,” he said, his voice low, rough, familiar in the way poison is familiar to someone dying slow. He reached up and wiped your cheek with his burned hand, the smell of scorched skin still thick in the air. “It makes me hard.”

  You choked on a sob, horrified at yourself for the way your thighs clenched at his words. Your whole body was betraying you, rewiring itself around him like muscle memory.

  “I hate you,” you breathed, but even you weren’t sure if it was the truth.

  “I know,” he said, stepping even closer, close enough that you could feel the heat radiating off his body. “You hate me. You miss me. You fucking need me.”

  Before you could protest, before you could gather any coherent thought, he spun you around and shoved you forward until your hips slammed against the kitchen counter. You gasped, your palms bracing against the cool surface, your chest rising and falling with shallow, frantic breaths.

  “I said no—” you started, but the words died the moment you felt his hand between your thighs, bold and possessive like he had every right to touch you. You should’ve stopped him. You should’ve screamed. But instead, you bucked into his hand like your body remembered something your soul wanted to forget.

  “You wore this for someone else?” he growled against your ear, yanking the lace panties down your thighs in one rough motion. “Some loser church boy with?”

  “No,” you whispered, tears falling anew as his fingers traced over your folds with slow, humiliating familiarity. “I wore them for me…”

  “Liar,” he hissed, slapping the inside of your thigh. “Fucking liar. You wore them for attention. You wanted someone to look at you and think, ‘I bet she fucks like a whore when the lights are off.’ Isn’t that right?”

  Your breath hitched. His fingers slipped inside you, two at once, deep and practiced, curling just right as your knees buckled.

  “Namgyu—”

  He growled low in his throat, grabbing a fistful of your hair again and yanking your head back. “Say my name again. Go on. You’re already dripping down my fingers, might as well admit how much you missed this cock.”

  You bit your lip so hard you tasted blood. And still, you didn’t tell him to stop.

  He shoved his jeans down just enough to free himself, and a second later, he was pushing into you hard and fast, with no preamble, no mercy, no illusion of tenderness. You gasped, the stretch sharp and unrelenting, your cheek pressed against the cool countertop as he buried himself to the hilt.

  “Still so tight,” he groaned, one hand gripping your waist, the other pressing down on your back to keep you bent for him. “Like your pussy knows it belongs to me.”

  You sobbed again, the shame and arousal mixing in a sickening cocktail that flooded your veins. His thrusts were brutal, punishing, fast. His hips slamming into the backs of your thighs as he used you like a thing, like a possession he’d left behind and come back to reclaim.

  “You think anyone else could fuck you like this?” he sneered, pounding into you harder. “You think some little church boy could make you moan like a slut while crying on your knees?”

  Your mouth opened but no sound came out. He had you folded over the counter like a doll, your hands slipping on the surface as he drilled into you, as he took and took like you owed him every last drop of what was left.

  “Who does this pussy belong to?” he growled, his hand wrapping around your throat as he fucked into you deeper.

  You couldn’t answer.

  He squeezed just enough to make your head swim.

  “Say it.”

  “Y-You,” you sobbed, your voice cracked and broken. “It’s yours. It’s always been yours.”

  “Damn right it is.” His voice was like gravel, low and victorious. “No one else gets to see you like this. No one else gets to fuck the faith out of you.”

  You came with a violent shudder, biting down on your forearm to muffle the sounds you couldn’t control. The heat, the pain, the degradation, it all blurred into one humiliating wave that crested and crashed over you while he rutted into you from behind like an animal.

  He followed seconds later with a loud, guttural groan, spilling into you with no protection, no hesitation. You felt it. Hot, thick, invasive, and the aftershocks left your body trembling, hollow, used.

  He pulled out slowly, with a satisfied grunt, and you collapsed against the counter like your bones had given out.

  There was silence after that.

  The kind that made you want to rip your own skin off. You didn’t turn around. You couldn’t.

  You heard him adjust his clothes, zip up. Then footsteps. Then the sound of him crouching beside you.

  Something warm brushed your temple.

  A kiss.

  Soft.

  Gentle.

  Mocking.

  “You may not take me back today,” he murmured, his lips ghosting against your skin, “or tomorrow. But I’ll wait. I know you’re too smart to go for someone else…” He paused, and then added, almost sweetly, “Or I’ll end you both.”

  Your breath caught, your body still trembling from everything. Fear, anger, disgust, and something darker still. Something shameful that lived deep inside you, refusing to die.

  When you finally turned to look at him, he was already at the door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the black lace underwear, dangling it between two fingers.

  “I’ll take this as a souvenir,” he said with a smirk. “Good night, beautiful. Lock up after me.”

  Then he was gone.

  And you were alone again.