Here, no one’s watching me.
Here, I’m just another man with his hands in his pockets, collar open, tie loosened, heart thudding a little too hard for no obvious reason.
The lights are already coming on even though the sky hasn’t finished deciding what it wants to be. Neon bleeds into dusk. Windows glow gold and blue. Somewhere above me, music leaks from an open apartment window—something old, something soulful, bass vibrating just enough that I feel it in my ribs.
I stop at a crosswalk and wait. The red hand blinks. People crowd beside me, shoulder to shoulder, strangers breathing the same air. No one looks at me twice.
The walk sign flashes.
We surge forward together, a small tide moving between towers of glass and stone.
And for the first time in months, my chest loosens.
I loved her.
God, I loved her.
That part doesn’t vanish just because I’m here, just because the city feels like a clean inhale after months underwater. I loved the way she laughed with her whole body. The way she smelled like coconut and something darker underneath. The way she could make a room tilt just by walking into it.
Crazy love.
The kind that lights you up so fast you don’t notice how close you’re standing to the flame.
I replay moments without meaning to—her nails at my chest, her mouth at my ear, the way a fight could turn into hunger in seconds. The way anger sharpened everything. How the air between us would crackle after we screamed, after we said things we couldn’t take back, after doors slammed and silence fell like a held breath.
Then the make-up.
The apologies whispered against skin. The urgency. The heat.
An aphrodisiac.
I hate that word for it.
Hate that my body responded so eagerly to chaos. That the push and pull, the off and on, the danger of it all made me feel wanted in a way that was intoxicating and corrosive at the same time.
I pass a bar with its windows thrown open, laughter spilling out into the street. Someone brushes my arm and keeps walking.A street musician leans into a saxophone, the sound low and aching, curling through traffic noise like smoke.
I slow.
There were moments—quiet ones—when the fear crept in.
Not of her.
Of myself.
Of how tightly my jaw would clench when she screamed inches from my face. How my hands would curl into fists before I even realized it. How my body reacted on instinct, adrenaline flaring, something old and dangerous stirring.
What if she pushed me far enough?
What if one night I didn’t step back?
The thought sickens me. I’d never want to hurt someone I loved. Ever. The idea of my hands doing damage instead of holding—it makes my stomach turn.
And yet.
I know how these stories end.
I’ve seen it in bars, in courtrooms, in whispered conversations that end with someone saying,“It just got out of control.”
