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The first day without him feels like relief.
Pure, dizzying relief.
You wake up expecting the familiar weight in your chest, the subtle pressure behind your thoughts—but there's nothing. No warmth. No watchfulness. No sense of being accompanied.
Just you.
You sit up too quickly, heart racing, waiting for the backlash.
It doesn't come.
You laugh once, breathless and disbelieving. The sound feels strange in your throat, unused. You press a hand to your chest, half-expecting to feel resistance.
Nothing answers.
He's gone.
The thought feels dangerous to hold, like touching a bruise to see if it still hurts—but you hold it anyway. You test it throughout the day, reaching inward, poking at the spaces where he used to exist.
Silence.
No correction.
No warning.
No possessive warmth.
You walk across campus lighter than you've felt in weeks. You catch your reflection in a glass door and don't flinch. You even stop long enough to really look at yourself.
You look… normal.
Tired, maybe. But intact.
When Mira texts you that evening—Want to grab coffee?—your fingers don't hesitate this time.
You say yes.
The café smells like burnt espresso and sugar. The kind of place that hums with quiet conversations and clinking cups. Mira talks cautiously at first, watching you the way one watches a wild animal that might bolt.
But you're present. Engaged. Real.
You don't interrupt her. You don't feel that strange irritation when she talks to other people. You laugh at the right moments.
"You seem better," she says finally.
"I think I am," you say.
And for the first time in a long while, you believe it.
That night, you sleep.
Deeply. Dreamlessly.
No hands.
No guidance.
No voice.
The second day feels like hope.
The third day feels like confidence.
By the fifth, you stop checking behind you altogether.
Two weeks pass.
Fourteen days of ordinary life.
You start to wonder if you imagined it all—if stress, fear, loneliness conspired to create something your mind couldn't handle. You don't dismiss the memories entirely, but they lose their sharpness, their authority.
Maybe you scared yourself.
Maybe you're free.
The thought settles gently, comfortably.
Too comfortably.
It happens on the fifteenth day.
You're in your kitchen, half-awake, pouring cereal into a bowl. Morning light spills across the counter, catching on the edges of mundane objects—the knife block, the toaster, the ceramic mug Mira bought you last year.
You reach for the milk.
The carton slips from your hand and hits the counter with a dull thud.
The sound that follows is not plastic against laminate.
It is a voice.
"Careful."
You freeze.
The word didn't come from behind you.
It came from the counter.
Your breath stalls halfway through your chest.
You straighten slowly, eyes locked on the milk carton. It sits upright, perfectly still, beads of condensation running down its sides.
Silence stretches.
You laugh nervously, sharp and brittle. "Okay," you mutter. "That's not funny."
No response.
You pour the milk. Your hands shake, sloshing it over the rim of the bowl. The cereal goes soggy almost instantly.
You eat anyway, forcing each bite down, telling yourself you're tired. Auditory hallucinations aren't uncommon under stress. You read that once.
You rinse the bowl and place it in the sink.
The faucet turns on by itself.
Not violently. Not suddenly.
Just… smoothly.
Water streams down, steady and controlled.
You stumble back, heart pounding.
"Stop," you whisper.
The water shuts off.
Your pulse roars in your ears.
You don't feel him.
That's the worst part.
There's no warmth. No pressure. No internal presence. The space inside you is still empty.
He isn't in you anymore.
He's around you.
The next incident happens that night.
You're lying in bed, scrolling mindlessly through your phone, trying to distract yourself from the way your apartment feels subtly hostile—like it's listening.
Your screen flickers.
The text blurs, then sharpens.
Letters rearrange themselves.
Your stomach drops as words appear where your social feed used to be.
You mistook absence for escape.
Your fingers go numb.
You throw the phone onto the bed like it burned you. The screen goes dark immediately.
The room is silent.
You don't sleep.
The following morning, your textbook falls open to a page you don't remember bookmarking. Lines of text seem darker somehow, heavier.
One sentence catches your eye.
You are safest when you are not alone.
Ink bleeds slightly at the edges, as if freshly printed.
You slam the book shut.
From the bookshelf, a soft sound answers.
A slow, deliberate tap.
Wood on wood.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
"Stop it," you say, louder now.
The tapping ceases.
A pause.
Then your microwave beeps once.
Just once.
Not the normal cheerful tone. Lower. Longer.
Displeased.
You back away until your shoulders hit the wall.
"You said you were gone," you whisper.
The fridge hum deepens subtly, its vibration changing pitch.
You needed to remember what silence actually is, he says—not inside your head, but everywhere at once.
The words ripple through the room, emerging from vents, appliances, the walls themselves. Each syllable arrives slightly out of sync, overlapping just enough to make your skin crawl.
"You left," you say. "I didn't feel you."
Detachment is not departure.
Your phone lights up again.
No notifications.
Just text.
You broke the habit of listening inward.
So I spoke outward.
You slide down the wall until you're sitting on the floor, knees pulled to your chest.
"This isn't fair," you say hoarsely.
The kitchen chair scrapes softly against the floor.
You didn't touch it.
Fairness is a human expectation, he replies.
I am adapting.
Your lamp flicks on.
Off.
On again.
The pages of your notebook rustle, flipping themselves one by one until they stop on a blank sheet.
Words etch themselves slowly, as if pressed by an invisible hand.
You wanted distance.
I gave you space.
Tears blur your vision.
"Please," you whisper. "I thought I was free."
The room stills.
Every object freezes mid-threat.
Then—
Freedom requires consent from all parties involved.
Your phone vibrates gently on the floor.
One final message appears.
You are not cursed.
You are claimed.
The screen goes dark.
The lights stay on.
The apartment hums softly around you, alive with quiet attention.
And in the hollow space inside your chest—where his presence used to be—you finally understand the truth:
He didn't disappear.
He expanded.
And now, nowhere you look is empty anymore.