Fractured

Withdrawal

It was almost impressive, the way Nero disappeared.

No dramatic exit. No breakup text. Just silence, as if someone had hit mute on my life.

For days, I kept my phone on loud. I had to customize his ringtone because I couldn’t take my ringtone digging into my brain every time a number called. I told myself he was busy. I told myself he was traveling. I told myself a hundred things that weren’t the truth. Until I settled in a familiar place. “he just got bored and realized you’re not good enough” I told myself.

The first night without him, I didn’t sleep. The second night, I drank until my jaw went numb. The third night, I found myself in the back of someone’s car, a stranger’s breath hot against my neck, and all I could think about was how his cologne was wrong.

It wasn’t Nero’s.

Parties became my replacement drug. I threw myself into every invitation, every room that smelled like sweat and booze and the metallic tang of bad decisions. I was the girl dancing barefoot on sticky floors at 3 a.m., kissing someone I didn’t know just to feel something sharp enough to cut through the numb.

It didn’t work.

Every time I laughed too loudly, I wondered if Nero would have smirked at me. Every time someone’s hand slid up my thigh, I imagined his. Bigger, rougher, certain.

By the second week, I was in freefall. Food tasted like cardboard. My skin felt too tight. The world was muffled, like I was underwater and the surface kept moving farther away.

One night, I ended up at a rooftop party, the kind where nobody knew whose apartment it was, and nobody cared. The skyline stretched out like a promise I couldn’t keep. Music pulsed through the air, bass vibrating in my ribs.

I leaned over the ledge, cigarette between my fingers, and wondered how far I’d fall before I felt it.

Then I heard it. Tthat voice. Low. Amused. Dangerous.

“Careful, angel. You fall from here, they’ll need more than a mop.”

I turned, and there he was.

Nero.

He looked exactly the same, which felt unfair. Black shirt, sleeves pushed up, that same lazy posture that said I own this room.

A thin scar traced his jaw, that was new. His eyes scanned me like he was checking inventory, like he was making sure I was still his.

My stomach flipped so hard I almost dropped my cigarette.

“Where the hell have you been?” I asked, but it came out softer than I meant.

He smirked. “Missed me?”

I wanted to say no. I wanted to slap him. I wanted to pull him into the stairwell and let him ruin me all over again. Instead, I just breathed, “Yes.”

The rest of the night blurred. One drink, then two. His hand at the small of my back, guiding me through the crowd like I was breakable. His mouth brushing my ear, saying things that made my pulse stutter.

We ended up in his car The smell of leather and him wrapped around me was intoxicating.

He kissed me intensely, my head hit the headrest, his fingers tangled in my hair, and I realized: I was gone. Completely. Hopelessly.

Whatever high I’d been chasing these past weeks, it was nothing compared to this.

When we finally pulled apart, I was dizzy.

“This isn’t good for you,” he murmured, almost to himself.

“I don’t care,” I said.

He looked at me like that was exactly the answer he’d been hoping for.

I didn’t remember the drive to his place. I didn’t care. I just remember the way he locked the door behind us like he was sealing my fate. And maybe he was.

Because the second he touched me again, I knew:

It didn’t matter how far he’d run.

I’d always follow.