Chapter 11

≿━━━━༺ 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 ༻━━━━≿

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The feed flickers for some time, then stops its movements entirely.

And there she is.

It's not even the first time that I have seen her, yet every time she walks out that damn door, it feels like something that you can never get used to – like rain in a desert. You don't get used to that; you learn to stand there and take it, even if it seems almost impossible.

Her pace, ever so unhurried – not lazy, but controlled. The kind that tells you that she's going to take every second of her time to reach that damn car, and my sanity in between.

My eyes trail her path, drawn by every whisper of her existence. I watch her like every single time, like she'll disappear if I tear my gaze away, even for a moment. Every damn detail noted. Guarded, stored, engraved.

The guards around her shift their stance, standing a bit taller than they were previously. She keeps her pace continuous, barely glancing at them – and I loved it, like everything else about her. She moves like someone who knows the ground has been cleared before she even takes her first few steps. And it has.

There are other things that I should be doing instead. My desk has a file, and my phone is ringing with unanswered calls. They can wait, though. They always do. Because she is the only one there at the moment. Everything else is just background noise.

The gates are pulled apart for her, slow and deliberate, along with sunlight spilling across the beige marble floor, as if it's bowing in her direction. Her car gleams under the direct sunlight, but even the black Mercedes looks like it's just a prop in her scene.

She opens the door, her movements slow and steady. Adjusting the rear-view mirror, she slides in.

And for a moment, I catch the faintest angle of her profile, Half-lit, and that familiar tightening ache in my chest appears again - the kind that says I would burn through my own hands before letting anything touch her without my permission.

She starts her engine. I clench my fingers around the desk's edge. I am fully aware of her destination. I was aware when she left Raventon without her bag.
She is unaware that I am thinking about her. Not just yet. She thinks that she works on her own schedule.
Her shadow remains on the screen even after her car vanishes beyond the gates.

Without averting my gaze, I grab my keys. As I stand, the chair scratches the floor. A sharper, more purposeful hum replaces the one in my chest.

Because the thing about watching her is—
It's never enough.
Far from it, in fact.

When I kill the screen, the feed turns black, but she is still there. She is still here, pacing between memory and thought, engraved into the hollow of my chest, and embedded in the nerves of my fingers.

I can still see how the sun shone on her and how, without her having to look at it, her presence brought the world into peace. I've learned to bear the silence that follows her departure, even though it's heavier than most people could handle. I've learned how to claim it as my own.

I could take a seat again. I could act like I'm working. People are waiting for my voice to tell them what to do next, calls are still unanswered, and there is a file on my desk that needs to be signed.

They all think that I make the decisions about when things happen. They're mistaken. She decides without realizing it. Because the moment she appears, my time, my focus, and my goddamn pulse are not mine. And now they are definitely not mine.

The sound of my chair scraping the floor is muffled by the corridor outside my cabin.

As soon as I stand, the air feels different, as if it has adjusted to something sharper. My steps have a purposeful echo, moving slowly and deliberately, just like she does when she knows the path is hers.

The structure seems too motionless. It's the tense, drawn-bowstring kind that hums beneath the skin, not the serene kind.

Every move I make mimics the rhythm that she established just a moment ago, giving me the impression that I'm walking in her footsteps rather than my own.

When I go outside, the air changes once more. It feels thicker and warmer here, as if it knows what I'm doing in my chest.

Even though the sunlight isn't as intense as it was on her, it still seems to push me forward. I take a slow breath, as if I hold it long enough, I might find traces of her in it. I think I do, almost.

It's never the same even after I've seen her drive more times than I can remember. Not only does the black Mercedes move to take her, but it also yields, bends, and obeys.

This type of obedience is required simply by existing; it is not taught. Without even trying, I've managed to commit every little movement of her wrist on the steering wheel and posture change to memory.

Her taillights would not be visible to me as I followed her. Without a map, I could follow her turns. She is unaware of how little she must say to me for me to understand.
I never stop wanting to know more about her, but perhaps that's the problem. It never ends.

She is completely unaware that I will see her again today, even though her shadow on my feed was the last one I saw. She is unaware that I am familiar with all of the routes she takes—not because I have been told, but rather because I have taken the time to become familiar with them.

I am aware of the roads she avoids and the ones she trusts. I am aware of her driving style when she is rushing and when she wants attention.

She never needs to look in her mirrors to know when she needs to change lanes. She thinks she makes her own decisions.

The engine roars to life as the key turns in my hand, a low growl resonating through the steering wheel and into my chest.

The ache is sharpened and refined into something useful by the vibration instead of becoming dulled.
The problem with wanting her is that you can't put it down when you're sick of carrying it around.
It's the type that resides in your bones.
The kind that follows you everywhere.
Everywhere.

Her absence has the drawback of being noisy. It's a sharp silence that catches you and is impossible to forget; it's not the kind of silence you can slip into like still water.

She remains there, even when the feed is off and the screen is completely black.

Not in some vague, abstract way — but in the exact weight of my fingers against the steering wheel, in the throb behind my ribs, in the way my vision keeps filling with the outline of her body stepping through sunlight like it was made for her.

She seems to have her own gravitational pull, and I've spent enough time in its orbit to have forgotten what it's like to stand somewhere else.

Without her, the building around me feels off, like a room feels when something valuable is taken away.

The air feels thicker, heavier, and almost unyielding in its denial of my normal breathing. My palms feel warm and tense despite the cold floor beneath my feet, as though I'm still holding onto a tangible memory of her.

My footsteps echo down the hallway, each one purposeful and bearing the weight of a man who is fully aware of his destination and the person he wishes to reach for. The walls seem too near, too exposed, and devoid of her shadow.

Even here, without her, I walk as though I'm following her every step of the way because I've mastered the rhythm of her movements.

The world feels sharper outside.

A faint scent, not hers, but enough to make my jaw tighten, clings to my skin like summer's weight. Without her, the sunlight doesn't feel the same. It's lighter. weaker. As if it had been meant only to light her.

Nevertheless, I slowly and greedily absorb it, imagining that it is carrying the ghost of her perfume, the smallest hint of whatever she was wearing when she passed through those gates.

I inhale it too deeply, causing my lungs to hurt. until, despite knowing I'm not, I feel like I'm close to her once more.

I've seen her drive so many times that I could recreate every trip without ever seeing her again, but the thought makes my stomach turn. She reflects the same unwavering elegance in her body, and that car is a part of it.

It delivers to her alone, moves when she wants it to, and stops when she wants it to.

Her profile is still vibrant in my mind, including the exact angle of her chin, the small curvature of her mouth during gear changes, and the careless elegance of her hand on the steering wheel.

I don't notice these things. I hold onto those things. Secured. Locked. mine.

She is unaware of it, which is the Irony of it. She is unaware that I will be seeing her again today.

She is unaware that the routes she takes have already been incorporated into the mental map I keep, and I have learned every detail, including how the light changes with the hours.

She is unaware that I already know what awaits her on the other side of that corner when she turns left. I can tell that she prefers the peaceful section of road with the leaning trees and no traffic lights when she chooses to take the longer route home.

I am aware of the roads she avoids and trusts, as well as the speed she maintains when she wishes to blend in and when she wishes to stand out. She believes she can move freely.

She is unaware that freedom only exists because I allow it.

The low growl of the engine fills the air around me like a promise as the key turns in my hand.

As the vibration passes through my fingers, it turns the pain in my chest into something sharp and potentially brutal. I can't put down the weight of wanting her.

It's not a fleeting mood or an indulgence.

It is deeply rooted. bone-deep. The kind that, even in the dark, follows you like a shadow.

The kind that stays with you while you sleep.

The kind that takes over your space and grows there until it becomes yours.

And maybe it already does.

It's not just desire. It's not Only desire. Not anymore. Has never been.

Desire is too human.

After being fed, desire fades.

What I carry for her has no mercy or end.

The darkness that consumes me in the silence and pierces me when I see her is a void that only she can fill. Her absence only causes the kind of ache that can only keep growing and gets worse, with no end or escape.

Her name pounds against the inside of my skull, and all that remains after it gnaws through the hours and the fake work-related distractions.

Although the steering wheel feels cool beneath my hands, my grip quickly warms it up. I have white knuckles. The car is merely a tether, an extension of my grasp for her.

Without her scent, every slow breath I take tastes like it's piercing, as if the air is incomplete.

My pulse feels way too heavy in my throat, chanting her name in a drumbeat in that same, agonizing rhythm that won't stop until I'm close enough to touch her, even if it's just a fleeting moment.

The distance between us bothers me. It is fucking hostile. Every second that I spend apart from her, it feels like someone is slowly twisting a knife into the hollow beneath my ribs. Here, time passes more slowly, cruelly stretching the minutes, the distance, and the lights that just seem to be hell bent upon delaying me.

She sat behind the wheel as if the street were hers, the sunlight fanned her hair majestically, and her mouth tilted slightly as if she knew something I didn't.

I can't stop thinking about that last picture of her until it gets old.

I would burn the damn city down, just so I could experience the ecstasy of her gaze on me once more.
Like the earlier times.

If it meant she'd look at me like that again, I'd burn the city down.
She is completely oblivious, and possibly will continue to be, unaware that I am already there in my mind, mapping and noting the path she takes each time.

that she does not feel free when she drives.

It's a fucking performance, and the only audience that counts is me.

Every time she stops at a red light or casts a sidelong glance, she unintentionally inserts another tiny blade into me.

The one that manages to cut deep, every fucking time.
Like a damn clockwork, that was only meant to destroy me.

I want her to continue twisting, though.
Something ugly spirals in my gut, sour and sharp, at the idea of anyone else taking up even a fraction of her attention. This type of ugliness is territorial rather than simply jealous. animal.

A silent violence that has no means of expression other than the awareness that if anything touched her that didn't belong, I would remove it.

She belongs. Not to herself, either. Not just to herself, anyway.
In the same way that drowning feels like breathing even after being submerged for way too long, I tell myself it's love. Because it consumes me entirely, fills me completely, judges my every action, and because living without her is the alternative, the impossible one. However, it is way more sinister than love. It is older and all-consuming. It's the marrow-rotting, bone-deep truth that she is mine in ways she will never be able to fully understand, and I will make sure she learns it somehow.

Anyhow.

My patience is like that of an animal pacing behind steel bars, but the engine growls low and patiently.

Every wheel turn is deliberate and measured, not because I want to take my time but rather so that I can enjoy the journey.

To lengthen the pain until it becomes intolerable, so that the clash of need and possession will be enough to destroy me when I see her again.

I do not want her.
I need her.

Like Oxygen when you're submerged entirely in water.
Like Fire when you're submerged entirely in Snow.

≿━━━━༺ 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 ༻━━━━≿

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