Nicolas’s POV
By the next session, I had convinced myself of two things:
1. I was completely in control of myself.
2. Imani didn’t affect me.
Both were lies, and I knew they were lies, but they were the only things stopping me from spiraling.
Every night I walked to her apartment, something in my chest tightened like I was heading into a fight I wasn’t prepared for. And every night, the second she opened the door, that tightness shifted into something hotter.
I needed to kill that feeling before it killed me. So tonight, I decided not to avoid it. I decided to lean into it.
To flirt deliberately, just enough to prove to myself it meant nothing. Just enough to push her away again.
If she got flustered, if she got annoyed, if she hated me a little more… then maybe this pull I felt to
