KHALID'S POV
I've always understood control.
It's been fundamental to everything I've ever done. Control of my emotions, control of my time, control of my business, control of my image. I was raised to believe that control is power, and power is everything. My father controlled the family. His father controlled him. It's the currency of our world.
But Roman is teaching me that control is an illusion.
And I'm not sure if I'm devastated or liberated by that realization.
---
It's been five weeks since the gala. Five weeks since I kissed her, since I tasted her, since I felt her surrender to me for the first time. Five weeks since everything changed.
And I'm not functional anymore.
My business is running because I've hired people smart enough to handle it without my constant attention. But me? I'm not present for any of it. I'm not present for conference calls or board meetings or anything that requires my focus. I'm not present in my own life.
I'm only present for her.
---
Let me be specific about what she's doing to me:
I wake up thinking about her. I plan my entire day around seeing her. I rearrange meetings, cancel obligations, tell my family I'm too busy to attend functions. I've basically taken myself out of circulation for a woman I've known for five weeks.
It's insane.
And I can't stop.
There's no logical reason for this. I've been with beautiful women before. I've been with intelligent women. I've been with women who challenged me. But I've never been with a woman who consumed me entirely.
Roman doesn't just take up space in my thoughts. She is my thoughts.
I'll be in a meeting and I'll remember the way she looked at me when I kissed her at the gala—like she was shocked that I actually had the capacity to break. Like she was impressed by my jealousy, my possessiveness, my complete inability to maintain control.
I'll be driving somewhere and I'll remember the way her hands felt on my hair when she was cutting it. Just a simple touch, and it nearly destroyed me.
I'll be at my apartment alone and I'll be thinking about the night after the gala, when she came to me and let me—
No. I can't think about that here. That's a spiral I can't afford to start.
---
The thing about addiction is that you know it's destroying you and you do it anyway.
I'm aware that this is unhealthy. I'm aware that I've reorganized my entire life around one woman. I'm aware that my family has started to ask questions about my availability, my commitment, my mental state. I'm aware that my business partners are concerned.
I don't care.
Because loving her, needing her, being obsessed with her—it's the only thing that makes sense.
---
Here's what I understand about myself now:
I'm possessive in a way that probably isn't healthy. When I look at her, I see someone who's mine. Not in a controlling way. In a way that's bone-deep, cellular, irrevocable. She's mine and I'm hers, and that symmetry makes me feel less insane about the fact that I'm dying for her every single day.
I think about other men looking at her and I want to hurt them. Not metaphorically. Actually physically hurt them. Which is why I don't go out with her in public very much anymore. Because I can't control my reaction when I see another man notice her. I can't be rational about it.
She thinks it's possessiveness.
It's deeper than that.
It's the understanding that I have found the one person in the world who sees me completely, and I will do anything to keep her.
---
The sexual aspect of this is consuming me in ways I didn't anticipate.
I've had lovers before. Good sex. Satisfying sex. But sex has always been separate from the rest of my life. A compartment. An activity.
With Roman, sex is different.
With Roman, I can't separate the physical from the emotional. When I'm inside her, I'm not just physically connected to her. I'm seeing her completely, and she's seeing me completely, and it's terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.
I think about her body constantly. The way she moves. The way she sounds when she comes. The way she looks when she's vulnerable. The way she lets me touch her in ways I know she doesn't let anyone else touch her.
I want to mark her. I want to leave evidence of me on her body so everyone can see that she's taken. So everyone can see that she belongs to someone.
And the worst part? She'd let me.
She's as obsessed with this as I am. She wants me to claim her. She wants me to mark her. She wants everyone to know that she's mine.
---
I'm aware that I'm not thinking clearly about this.
I'm aware that obsession isn't love, or at least that it's not the kind of love that's sustainable. I'm aware that if I lose her, I won't recover. I'm aware that I'm building a life where she's the foundation, and if she leaves, everything collapses.
I don't care about any of that.
Because the alternative, not having her is unthinkable.
---
What scares me is, that one day she's going to realize that she can do better than me. That she can find someone who can give her everything; the public love, the marriage, the visible commitment. That she can leave and find a normal life with a normal man who can actually be with her.
When that happens, I don't know what I'll do.
I think about it at dawn sometimes, lying awake while she sleeps beside me. I think about what would happen if she woke up tomorrow and decided she was done. If she decided that my obsession was too much, my possession too complete, my need for her too consuming.
And I realize that I would do anything to prevent that.
Anything.
---
I told her something last week that I shouldn't have told her.
We were lying in bed, and she was asking me about my life before her. About my former lovers, my family, my obligations. And I told her the truth: there is no before her. There's just her. There's just me existing in a constant state of wanting her.
She asked me if I was scared.
I said yes.
She asked me what I was scared of.
I told her: "You. I'm scared of you. Of what you do to me. Of what I've become because of you. Of the fact that I would burn down my entire life if you asked me to."
And she kissed me, and she said, "Good. That's what I want. I want you to be as obsessed with me as possible"
---
So I confession:
I'm completely, utterly, irrevocably in love with her.
Not the kind of love that's healthy. Not the kind of love that therapists would approve of. Not the kind of love that's balanced or rational or sustainable.
The kind of love that consumes you. The kind of love that makes you do things you never thought you'd do. The kind of love that reorganizes your entire life around one person.
And I'm not fighting it anymore.
---
My brother asked me about her last week.
He said, "You're not yourself anymore."
And I told him, "No, I'm exactly myself for the first time in my life. I'm just a version of myself that exists completely in relation to her."
He looked concerned.
I didn't bother explaining. How do you explain to someone that being consumed by another person is the only thing that's ever made you feel real?
---
I'm going to marry her.
I don't know when. I don't know how, given my family's expectations and the complications of my position. But I'm going to marry her. She's going to be my wife. She's going to wear my ring. She's going to be mine in every way that matters.
And if my family has a problem with that, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.
Because the alternative—spending the rest of my life without her, pretending this isn't what it is, maintaining the distance and the control and the separation—is unacceptable.
---
What I know:
I'm obsessed. I'm probably terrifying in the intensity of my need for her. I'm rearranging my entire life around her. I'm willing to destroy everything for her.
What I don't know:
How long she'll let this continue. How long she'll be content with the stolen moments and the secret relationship. How long before she demands something I can't give her.
What I'm hoping:
That she'll stay. That she'll choose me over everything else, the way I'm choosing her over everything else. That she'll accept my obsession as love. That she'll let me have her completely, and let me give her everything I have to give.
Which is everything.
It's all of me.
---
I'm dying for her.
And I'm not sure if that's the best thing that's ever happened to me or the worst.
All I know is that I can't imagine existing without her anymore.
And I'm not going to try.