CH 2: I Found Him!
1240 Words
Leela’s POV
I slept through the entire day like someone who wasn’t sure she wanted to wake up again.
When my eyes finally opened, the motel room was quiet and dim, soaked in the soft orange glow of evening. Fading sunlight slipped through the thin curtains, stretching across the walls in tired streaks of gold.
For a few blissful seconds, my mind was empty. No memories. No responsibilities. No ticking clock.
Then my wrist began to throb.
The pain was subtle at first, just a dull pulse beneath my skin. But it was enough. Enough to pull reality back into place.
I lifted my arm slowly.
The poison watch clung tightly around my wrist, its metallic frame cold against my skin. Inside the two narrow glass tubes, green liquid shimmered faintly. The level had dropped again. Slightly lower than yesterday.
Thirty-nine days.
Every midnight, a single drop slips into my bloodstream. I don’t see it happen. I don’t feel the exact moment. But my body does. My veins burn like something living is crawling beneath them. By morning, I wake up weaker than the day before.
Thirty-nine more nights of that.
But today felt different.
Today, I found him.
After weeks of searching—riding across unfamiliar cities before sunrise, following whispers, chasing rumors that dissolved like smoke—I finally found him.
Tomorrow, I will return what belongs to him.
Tomorrow, I will close the chapter I never had the courage to finish.
Tonight, however, belongs to me.
I pushed myself off the bed and walked toward the mirror. The girl staring back at me looked thinner than I remembered. Her shoulders had sharpened. Shadows rested beneath her eyes like permanent stains. But there was something else there too. Something that hadn’t been present weeks ago.
Resolve.
I opened my bag and pulled out a black off-shoulder top. I don’t know why I packed it. Maybe some quiet part of me knew I would need one last night to feel alive instead of hunted by time.
I changed slowly, pairing it with fitted blue jeans. I brushed my hair and let it fall naturally over my shoulders. A thin line of eyeliner. A soft shade on my lips. Nothing dramatic. Nothing loud.
Just enough to remind myself that I am still a woman. Still breathing. Still capable of being seen.
I studied my reflection for a long moment.
“You survived this far,” I whispered to the girl in the mirror.
Maybe that alone deserved celebration.
The nightclub near my motel was impossible to miss.
The music thudded through the pavement, vibrating faintly beneath my shoes as I approached.
Neon lights flickered above the entrance in reckless colors. Laughter spilled onto the street. Strangers brushed past one another without care.
I hesitated only once. Then I walked in. Its not new for me step into nightclub. I work as a waitress in nightclub, and after I wear this watch i need something to tolarence my pain.
And alcohol is best option expect learning on some random guy in the club. I drink my ass off that didn't remind me the pain.
gentrally I drink at my room, so if I pass out no one take advantage of me. But today was different. I'll drink enough walk back to my room.
The sound swallowed me instantly. Flashing lights sliced through darkness. Bodies moved without restraint on the dance floor, limbs tangled in rhythm and sweat.
People shouted over the music, leaned into each other, laughed like tomorrow wasn’t waiting with consequences.
No one here knew me.
No one knew I was dying slowly, one measured drop at a time.
No one knew I had come to this city to say goodbye to someone who never chose me.
I slipped onto a barstool and faced the counter.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked, barely audible over the bass.
“Something strong.”
The first sip burned its way down my throat.
The second spread warmth through my chest. By the third, the tightness inside me loosened enough to breathe properly again.
I watched the chaos around me. A girl in glittering heels spun without balance, laughing when she nearly fell.
A group of boys shouted exaggerated stories to impress one another. A couple argued fiercely near the wall, only to pull each other into a desperate kiss seconds later.
Life here was messy. Loud. Imperfect. But it was alive.
I tried to imagine what it would feel like to exist without counting days. To love without measuring how much it might cost. To belong somewhere without having to prove my worth first.
I rested my chin lightly on my hand, staring into the amber liquid in my glass as if it held answers.
That was when I felt it.
Not a change in the music.
Not a shift in the lights.
A shift in the air.
It grew heavier. Warmer. Charged.
My skin prickled instinctively, every nerve sharpening without my permission. The glass hovered near my lips as my body went still.
Someone was standing behind me.
Close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from him. Close enough that the space between us felt intentional.
I didn’t turn immediately. I told myself it was nothing. Just the alcohol. Just my imagination feeding on loneliness.
But my heartbeat betrayed me.
It slowed.nThen it quickened.
There was something about this presence that didn’t feel accidental. It carried awareness. Control. Quiet authority. The kind that doesn’t need to announce itself to be felt.
“Hello…” The voice was low, smooth, steady.
It cut through the music without raising itself. Close enough that I felt the vibration of it more than heard it.
“Can I sit here?” He asked.
My fingers tightened subtly around the glass.
I turned.
And for a split second, the world narrowed.
He wasn’t shouting like the others. Wasn’t swaying from drink. He stood composed amid chaos, dark hair falling slightly over his forehead as if he had brushed it back too many times. His shoulders were broad beneath a fitted shirt, but he didn’t lean aggressively into my space. He waited.
His eyes were what caught me.
Golden-brown. Not sharp in cruelty. Not cold in calculation. But steady. Observing. Curious in a way that felt deliberate.
Something inside me reacted before my mind could process it.
Recognition.
Not of him, but of what he represented.
Power. Not loud. Not forced. Simply present.
And suddenly I was painfully aware of the ticking clock on my wrist.
I should not be starting anything new. I should not be feeling anything unfamiliar. Tomorrow, I return what belongs to another man. Tomorrow, I walk away for good.
Yet tonight, fate had chosen to stand directly behind me and ask for permission.
I held his gaze longer than necessary, searching for arrogance, for danger, for something that would make it easier to refuse.
Instead, I found patience.
“You can,” I replied finally, my voice steadier than I felt.
He took the seat beside me, close enough that the air between us remained warm, but not touching.
Not yet.
And as the music swelled around us and the lights flashed recklessly overhead, I had the strange, unsettling feeling that this night the one I had claimed for myself was no longer entirely under my control.
And somehow, they suddenly felt much more complicated.
*****
- Writer
