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Roman found me a few hours later and dragged me back, promising he’d help me find her, so long as I stay put until my injuries heal.

I didn’t know her name. I only knew the sound of her laugh, the feel of her hand when she covered my mouth, the way her eyes looked when she cried, the faint trace of her scent that refused to leave me.

I knew all of that, and still—I didn’t know her fucking name.

I went back to that bridge every week, at the exact same time, sitting on the pavement, hoping, begging, she’d come back to me.

My nights were spent waiting, staring into the dark water until it blurred, and the days were nothing but a restless search, chasing a girl who had disappeared as if the world had swallowed her whole.

Finding out that my mama had died, losing all hope in humanity and then stumbling upon a golden, warm light at the end of the tunnel, only to have it ripped away from me again fucked me up.

Even psycho Roman, of all people, told me to see a fucking shrink and I refused until the pills started bringing her back in my dreams.

Those dreams became the only place where she still existed, the only way I knew how to cope.

Before long, I was chasing them instead, retreating into my own head, slowly abandoning reality because it had nothing left to offer me.

That was the only place where I could see her, where she would smile at me.

Three years of torment, three years of frantic search, looking for a nameless girl and then, impossibly, fate put her in front of me again.

There she was, an inch or two taller but the same dead eyes, the same small heart-shaped face, the same sweep of golden hair that still managed to knock the breath out of me.

Fucking ironic. I’d told myself I’d take distance over her absence any day, but the distance was what was tearing me apart.

Every moment spent without her presence was corrosive, turning me reckless, turning me into something ruinous.

There was no scar on her forehead, no trace of the blood I remembered, like that night had been wiped clean.

And she looked at me like I was nothing, like she had never seen me before in her life.

For six months, I waited for recognition to flicker in her eyes, stealing glances whenever I could, holding onto the smallest hope that she’d remember.

But I couldn’t fucking take it anymore. I needed her. She was mine.

She’d been mine from the moment she tore her scarf to make something soft enough to wipe my tears, from the moment I pulled that laugh out of her, from the second she touched me. She’d been mine ever since.

She is mine.

I wrap my arms around her firmly, not wanting to let her go, ever again. Landing another soft kiss on the same spot she hit her head that night.

My girl is in my arms, she’s breathing, and she is mine.

She slept the entire way home, curled into herself with my jacket wrapped around her small frame. I buttoned it up before lifting her easily into my arms and carried her to the penthouse.

Her head resting against my shoulder as she snuggled closer, as if reaching out for me even in her sleep.

Her lips were swollen, a small cut on the bottom one where I’d bitten her, her hair a mess, falling everywhere.

She smelled like me, and something about that only stroked my possessive streak.

It felt wrong to wash my cum off her body, so I laid her down on the bed and pulled the sheets over her as she stirred.

She replaced me with a pillow almost instantly, curling into it, resting her head there instead.

I watched her for a moment, then decided against taking a shower myself too.

If she’s reaching for something in her sleep, it’s got to be me.