She’s here.
Naked.
Asleep.
Arm draped across my chest
like we never stopped being real.
Like nothing broke.
She smells like she used to:
perfume and heat,
and the kind of sweetness
I used to mistake for permanence.
But I feel…
nothing.
Not peace.
Not ache.
Not the quiet ache I rehearsed all year
for this moment.
Her text came like a cue:
“Hey there, stranger.”
They always start that way.
Every one of them.
We drank.
She laughed, touched my arm.
Said I looked good.
Said I always did.
The script was familiar.
But that’s what this is now.
A scene I’ve played to perfection.
Each night,
a different woman,
a carousel of flesh and perfume,
of warm skin and empty goodbyes.
Now I can’t tell
if I’m acting
or disappearing.
Even the pauses feel planned.
We made love,
if that’s still what we’re calling
the choreography of ritual:
her mouth, my hands,
the skin we used to trust.
I used to think this would save me.
But it doesn’t.
It just fills the room
with echoes.
And I can’t hear myself
in them anymore.
Because I know how this night will end.
She’ll leave by midnight.
They always do.
Same kiss.
Same pause.
And at the door, they say:
“It’s so good to see you again.”
They want it to mean something.
Or maybe they want me
to believe it meant something.
But it didn’t.
Not to them.
Not to me.
It’s just something they say
so the night doesn’t follow them
out the door.
—
I turn and look at her.
Her hair spills over her face
like it always did.
Soft.
Familiar.
Beautiful.
I don’t see the woman I loved anymore.
I’m just another night.
And she’s just another body.
—
Something happened,
once.
About a year ago,
right after she left,
when the bed still smelled like her hair,
and her laughter still lived in the walls.
I wanted to hurt.
I thought hurting meant I still had a heart.
But the ache grew teeth,
and I went looking for ways
to shut it up.
I woke one night,
but not in my bed.
Not anywhere I knew.
Just heat,
and sand,
and silence so thick
it pressed against my ribs
like shame.
It wasn’t a dream.
Or if it was,
I’ve been dreaming ever since.
There was an altar.
Endless.
Bottles glowing like secrets,
each one humming
like it knew my name.
They said if you drink,
you’ll be given your deepest desire.
Not the one you say out loud,
but the one that steers you in the dark
when no one’s watching.
I thought of her.
The way she touched my face
like I was worth keeping.
The way she made me believe
I could be better
than I was.
I wanted her to come back.
I wanted it to be enough.
I wanted me to be enough.
I wanted to stop feeling
like I’m impossible to love.
—
Then I woke up alone.
Was it a dream?
A vision?
A hallucination of hope?
I don’t know.
But something shifted.
I felt it.
That night,
my phone lit up.
“Hey there, stranger.”
Not her.
But someone I used to know.
A name I hadn’t spoken in years.
We met.
We drank.
We reminisced.
And here we were,
clothes on the floor,
mouths on each other,
fucking like she was starving
for something she couldn’t name.
She left before midnight.
With a kiss.
And at the door, she said:
“It was so good to see you again.”
And the next night,
someone else.
“Hey there, stranger.”
Then again.
And again.
A different night.
A different body.
Same script.
Same exit.
At first, I thought it was coincidence.
Some cosmic joke.
Then I was angry
for not getting her back.
For not getting what I wanted.
But after the third,
the fourth,
the fifth,
I stopped lying.
This wasn’t a fluke.
This was a ritual.
And maybe the bottle
did exactly what I asked.
Maybe it gave me
what I truly wanted.
Not her.
Not love.
Not even peace.
Just this.
Bodies.
Skin.
Pleasure without weight.
Goodbyes without grief.
Eyes that never ask who I am.
And maybe that’s who I’ve always been:
Not someone you stay for.
Not someone you call back.
Just a warm body
to fuck,
to forget.
Because in those hours,
tangled in sweat and silence,
I stop hurting.
And maybe that’s the ugliest truth of all:
that I’d rather feel nothing
than remember what it means
to miss her.
—
I wake
to light warming the sheets.
She’s still here.
I thought she’d be gone.
They always are.
Gone by midnight.
Like clockwork.
But she’s here.
Still asleep.
Still breathing.
I don’t move.
Don’t even blink.
Is this it?
Did the spell break?
Did she come back
for good?
My phone lights up.
I know that number.
The barista.
Last Tuesday.
She says she’s been thinking of me.
Wants to meet again tonight.
I set the phone down.
Glance at her.
Still here.
Still real.
Still beautiful
in that way
that still breaks me.
I look back at the phone.
And something inside me
finally says:
I can’t do this anymore.
Not the carousel.
Not the forgetting.
Not the ache
dressed up as pleasure.
She’s all I ever wanted.
And here she is.
Now.
Here.
But can she ever forgive
everything I did?
She stirs.
Turns toward me.
Eyes soft.
Familiar.
Tired.
“Hey there, stranger.”
And for the first time
in too long,
something cracks
that isn’t shame.
We kiss.
And it doesn’t feel like ritual.
It feels
like maybe,
just maybe,
I can be more
than what I’ve become.
—
She gets dressed.
Slow.
Beautiful.
Casual.
She catches me watching.
Smiles.
Moves like she remembers
how we used to be.
I want to ask her to stay.
I want to tell her:
no matter how many times
you break me,
I could never stop loving you.
We hold each other,
her arms wrapped around me
like we always belonged.
I kiss her.
Soft.
She touches my face.
“I missed you.”
My eyes well up.
Maybe that’s what
I really wanted to hear
all this time.
And for a moment,
the world makes sense.
“I missed you too.”
She looks at me
like she’s memorizing
the shape of my face.
And says:
“I really enjoyed last night.”
I know that tone.
The touch of finality.
My mind pleads—
No.
Please.
Don’t say it.
“It was so good to see you again.”
—
She’s gone.
And I’m back
where I began.
A body.
A ritual.
And now
I understand.
What I really wanted
wasn’t her.
Wasn’t love.
I just wanted
to stop hurting.
The bottle heard me.
It always does.
No grief.
No weight.
Just touch.
Just silence.
Just exits
that don’t echo anymore.
My phone lights up again.
The barista.
Still waiting.
“Your place tonight?”
Heart emoji.
I type the words
like muscle memory.
Sure.
Featured image adapted from a photo by Shayan Rostami.
See more on Unsplash: @shayan_rostami
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