TATE
THE SILENCE WAS the worst part.
Not the walls. Not the locked door. Not even the shadows I could never chase away no matter how much I paced the room. It was the quiet. It was thick, pressing, crawling under my skin until it felt like it might peel me open from the inside.
I hadn’t seen him in days.
That should’ve been a f*****g blessing. A break. A chance to breathe without his shadow stretching over me. And yet… the emptiness burned and itched. My chest was restless, my head louder, my body wired like I was waiting for something that never came.
It was stupid, really. I didn’t miss him. Missing implied wanting. This wasn’t that. This was my body too used to danger, too conditioned to his presence, that without it the silence felt… different.
I sat on the edge of the bed, elbo
