Addiction & Surrender

Aftermath

The Quiet Hunger

Something changed after that night.

The texts came faster.

The calls were less calculated.

His need for me bled through the cracks, raw and messy and real.

And I…

I started answering.

Without waiting. Without games.

We started meeting in places that weren’t just dark corners and back seats.

We sat across from each other in cafés, brushing knees under tables like we didn’t know how to stop touching.

We f****d in my bed instead of against my walls.

We let mornings happen.

I let him stay.

Again.

And again.

And he stayed because, for once, he wasn’t chasing—

I was offering.

But the more he got, the more it started to scare him.

He started pulling me closer just to push me away.

Started holding me tighter just to remind himself he wasn’t supposed to.

He wanted me to ruin him, but he didn’t know how to survive it.

⸻

Dante’s Retreat

The next time he left, it wasn’t sharp.

It wasn’t rage or punishment.

It was quiet.

He stopped showing up unannounced.

Stopped calling as much.

His messages thinned out like smoke.

When I saw him again, his kisses were still rough, but something about them tasted like goodbye.

I didn’t ask.

I didn’t chase.

But I felt it.

That low, sick ache in my ribs. That silent unraveling I knew too well.

I caught him one night sitting on the edge of my bed, his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it held the answers to something he didn’t know how to say.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, my voice quieter than I meant it to be. “Why pull away now?”

He dragged a hand through his hair, avoiding my eyes.

“Because I’ll destroy you if I stay.”

I almost laughed.

As if I wasn’t already in pieces.

“You’re such a f*****g coward,” I whispered, sliding my arms around his waist from behind, pressing my cheek to his back. “You think you’re protecting me?”

He didn’t answer.

Just covered my hands with his.

Held me like it would be the last time.

And I let him leave.

Because I’d always let him leave.

But I didn’t stop needing him.

Didn’t stop craving him in the silent spaces where I pretended I was fine.

⸻

Dante’s POV

I told her I was doing it to protect her.

It was a lie.

I was doing it to protect myself.

Because I could feel it—how deep I was falling, how fast I was losing the edges of who I used to be.

With her, there were no brakes. No surface. No exit.

I couldn’t keep letting her have me like that—soft, wrecked, f*****g wide open.

So I did what I always do.

I disappeared.

Not all at once. That would’ve been cleaner.

I pulled back in pieces.

A few unanswered texts.

A few days between calls.

A missed night.

Then another.

Each distance a stitch, a weak attempt to sew myself back up.

But it didn’t work.

Because the hunger stayed.

Because I still thought about her every second.

Because no one else tasted like her, sounded like her, f*****g felt like her.

I caught myself listening to her voicemails on loop.

The ones where she wasn’t even saying anything important.

Just her voice.

Just the sound of her breathing between words.

I hated myself for it.

I hated the way my skin burned for her.

I hated that my c**k was hard even when I tried to think of someone else.

I hated that I missed her smell.

I thought pulling away would save me.

But it only made me starve.

And the longer I stayed gone, the more it f*****g ruined me.

Because the next time I saw her…

She wasn’t waiting.

⸻

The Letter

Three days passed.

I didn’t reach out.

I didn’t drink.

I didn’t invite anyone over.

I just… existed.

Woke. Worked. Watched the sky bleed into night.

I wasn’t healing. Not really.

But I was quiet.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

Then it came.

Tucked in a pile of mail I hadn’t touched in a week — bills, flyers, a catalogue I never subscribed to.

And one envelope.

Handwritten.

No return address.

Just my name.

My birth name.

I stared at it for a long time, my fingers tightening around the flap like if I held it long enough, the paper would dissolve instead of make me remember.

But I opened it anyway.

The handwriting was messy. Familiar. Like a whisper from a house I used to live in.

“I don’t know if you’ll read this.

But I needed to say something.

I was a shitty father. I know that.

I should’ve protected you from what happened.

From him. From me. From everything.

You didn’t deserve what you went through.

I didn’t say it then. I’m saying it now.

You were never too much.

You were just more than I knew how to handle.

I hope you’re safe.

I hope someone sees you now.

The real you.

Not the version that learned to disappear just to be loved.

I’m sorry.”

The paper trembled in my hands.

And then so did I.

It wasn’t Dante.

It wasn’t Julian

It was before them.

Before s*x became survival.

Before love was something to outmaneuver.

It was origin.

The first abandonment.

The first lesson that to be loved, I had to be smaller. Quieter. Better.

And suddenly, I saw it all clearly —

Every man I had ever chased, seduced, submitted to or dominated.

All of them were just echoes of that first wound.

Dante: the chaos I thought I could fix.

Julian: the danger I thought I could control.

And me?

I’d been all versions of the girl who just wanted to be chosen.

But I wasn’t that girl anymore.

I folded the letter.

Put it in the drawer.

Didn’t burn it.

Didn’t frame it.

Just… let it be.

And for the first time, I sat in the silence and didn’t try to fill it with someone else’s body.

I breathed.

And maybe — just maybe — I began to forgive her.

The girl I used to be.

⸻

Chasing the High

It had been weeks since Dante slipped away again.

No calls. No texts. No surprise appearances. Just silence—thick and final.

I’d spent those weeks trying to scrape myself clean of him. Digging through my own mess, asking myself the questions I’d been too afraid to answer before. Who was I without him? Without the pull? Without the addiction?

Some days, I felt lighter. Other days, I was just hollow in a new shape.

But I was learning to live with the silence.

I was getting good at pretending I didn’t miss him.

Good at focusing on me.

Good at… other distractions.

And in that quiet, I allowed Julian to fill the space.

He never said too much, but he didn’t have to. His attention was deliberate—calculated. The way his hand would linger a second too long when he handed me a file. The way his gaze would slide over me in meetings, sharp and knowing, like he was already halfway inside my head. Like he could see exactly where I was starting to crack.

He never rushed. Never pressed. Just… hovered. Waiting for me to tip toward him.

And I did.

Maybe I was tired of pretending I didn’t notice the way his mouth quirked when I challenged him. Maybe I wanted to see how far I could push before he stopped being polite.

So I started teasing.

I let my fingers graze his when I passed him documents. I let my laughter linger when his remarks landed just on the edge of inappropriate. I wore things that made his gaze darken, then acted like I didn’t notice.

“You keep looking at me like that,” he said one afternoon, cornering me near the supply room, his voice low, silk wrapped around steel. “And I’ll have no choice but to remind you who’s in charge here.”

I leaned back against the wall, heart steady, lips curling just enough to make him burn. “Oh? And who exactly is in charge?”

His smile was slow. Dangerous. He stepped closer, just enough to make the air heavy between us. “Careful, Val. You’re playing with matches. Keep striking them, and eventually, something’s going to catch fire.”

I let the silence stretch between us, let his words hang like a promise. Then I tipped my chin up, eyes steady on his. “Maybe I want to burn.”

For a second, his jaw flexed like he was debating whether to break his own rules.

But instead, he stepped back, the ghost of a smirk still tugging at his mouth. “Soon,” he murmured. “You’ll beg me to.”

And maybe I would.

Maybe I was already halfway there.

Because when Dante disappeared, I promised myself I wouldn’t chase him.

But it didn’t mean I wasn’t still chasing the high.