He threads his way past the last patrons and the barista stacking chairs. Rain still pulses against the windows, each drop an echo of the night’s electric tension. He takes a steadying breath, pushing away the swirl of his thoughts. Tonight, he won’t linger.

His fingers toy with the small sketch card in his pocket—her delicate lantern drawing, the looping script beneath: Every hesitation tells the truth. He tucks it farther in, then pauses. Something inside tells him to answer her puzzle. He reaches into his coat and pulls free a scrap of paper he’s carried since afternoon.

On its crumpled surface, in neat handwriting, is a poem of his own:

In the hush before confession,
I trace the shape of your absence.
A shadow pressed to my ribs,
A question that bleeds in silence.

He folds the note once, twice, then lets it slip back into his pocket—only to deliberately drop it onto the empty seat beside him as he stands. It flutters to the cushion, a silent lure for her sharp eye.

He doesn’t watch to see if she notices. Instead, he tucks his hands into his coat and steps into the corridor, nodding to Rhea on his way out.

Outside, the night wraps around him like velvet. The café’s glow recedes behind him as he pulls up his collar and sets off down the narrow street.

He reaches his building—an aging concrete block half lit by a solitary streetlamp. He fumbles his key, thinking of Gramps’s hollow six o’clock curfew and how that same routine once scarred him with loss. Tonight, he clings to routine as an anchor.

7:13 PM — He peels off his soaked coat and drapes it over the chair in the shared living room. His roommate, Arjun, sits on the couch with headphones, oblivious. He offers a nod. No words. Arjun raises an eyebrow, then returns to his music.

7:18 PM — In the kitchenette, he boils water for tea. Instinctively, he reaches for a tea bag labeled jasmine—her favorite note from his earlier visits. He stops, glances at the counter, then swaps it for mint. He’s not ready for reminders of her beyond necessary clues.

7:25 PM — He settles at his desk, laptop open to the blank assignment document. The cursor blinks as before, but he resists sitting down. Instead, he sifts through his worn copy of Dostoevsky, flipping to a margin note: “Pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” He underlines it—maybe inspiration for his story.

7:40 PM — He makes a simple dinner: two eggs scrambled, a slice of whole‑wheat toast. Gramps used to add a pat of butter and a sprinkle of salt. He refrains. Tonight, he tastes only egg. He chews slowly, mind drifting back to the line he left at the café.

8:00 PM — He sits cross‑legged on the rug, legs leaning against the desk chair. He pulls out his phone and scrolls through old photos—campus snapshots, rainy‑day selfies, the one blurry image of him from Monsoon Café. He lingers on it, zooms in on the chipped thumbnail he recognized. A twinge of longing and apprehension.

8:15 PM — He finally opens the document and types a sentence:

Gramps taught me that loss is the echo left in an empty room.

He deletes it. Rewrites:

Loss lingers in the hush of early morning, when you reach for a voice that’s vanished.

He pauses. This… could work. He saves and leans back, exhausted. The poem, the sketch, the glowing amber café—tonight’s fuel for tomorrow’s assignment.

9:00 PM — He showers, the hot water washing away the day’s tension. He lets his thoughts drift to her: the ghost of her presence at the counter, the way her hair caught the light, her silent focus. He imagines the feel of her fingers pressing against his skin.

9:25 PM — He jots a phrase into his phone’s notes: “Shelter in her gaze.” Then turns off the light, climbs into bed, cocooning beneath the sheets. For a moment, he closes his eyes and hears nothing but the rain’s heartbeat and the pulse in his own veins.

Sleep pulls him under.

Light seeeps around the breakroom door’s crack as Priya steps out, wiping her palms on her apron. The café floor lies deserted now, chairs stacked, lanterns dimmed to a smoky glow. She pauses at the hatch and glances toward his usual table.

There—tucked beneath the edge of the cushion—is a slip of paper she didn’t plant. Her pulse stutters when she reads the elegant script:

In the hush before confession,
I trace the shape of your absence.
A shadow pressed to my ribs,
A question that bleeds in silence.

A slow, hungry smile curves her lips. He answered her riddle. Cute, she thinks, that he’d dare respond—leaving his words for her alone. A warm buzz lights behind her eyes as she imagines him leaning close, breath hushed, whispering those lines just for her.

Every nerve in her body ignites. Yet she resists the impulse to collapse into fantasy—knowing that, for all its elegance, a poem is still a trap. She slips the sketch card from her pocket instead and drifts to the counter. The chai cup he abandoned sits like a relic, its rim still tinged with his warmth. Reverently, she lifts it, brings it to her lips, and tastes the faint residue of cardamom and coffee—his secondhand kiss. A tremor races through her as if she’d drunk from his pulse itself.

She closes her eyes against the swirl of sensation: the curve of his jaw, the way his Adam’s apple bobs, the thought of how those lips would part against hers, the private tremor she yearns to claim. When she opens her eyes, the cup’s cold rim clinks against the metal counter.

Her heartbeat drums a frantic tattoo as she returns to the breakroom desk. She drops the cup with a soft clatter and slides her journal into place, flipping to a fresh page. Her pen hovers as her thoughts erupt into words:

I want to feel his pulse under my tongue,
his breath catch like a prayer on my lips,
slide his coat from his shoulders
and drape it over the curve of my hip
so he’s naked to my intentions.

The words bleed onto the page, raw and unfiltered. She pauses, chest heaving, then scrawls fiercely:

I will make him bleed truth.

She smudges the final word with her thumb, ink smeared into a dark stain. The thrill is electric—she should tear out the page, torch it, bury it. But the power it pulses back at her is intoxicating.

Her phone buzzes in her apron pocket—Rhea’s name glowing insistently. Priya’s stomach knots. She stuffs the journal into her bag, heart pounding with half-shame, half-triumph. She’s not ready for intervention.

The breakroom door slams open.

Rhea storms in, rain-drenched and furious, each drop spattering against the tiles. Her eyes lock onto Priya’s bag, then to the way Priya’s shoulders tremble.

“Priya, for fuck’s sake, what the hell is this?” Rhea hisses, snatching the journal free. Her voice shakes between anger and genuine fear. “You’re—are you insane?”

Priya lunges, desperate to reclaim her diary, but Rhea is taller, iron-strong. She holds the book aloft, flipping it open to Priya’s final confession.

Rhea reads the lines out loud, voice tight:

I want to feel his pulse under my tongue...
…so he’s naked to my intentions.

Her face splits—shock contorted into alarm. She rubs her forehead, hair stuck to her temples. "Jesus Christ, Priya, this is fucking dangerous. You're fantasizing about eating him."
Priya's knees go weak. "Rhea, you don't get it," she begs. "I need him to see me. To open himself up. To be vulnerable to me—truly vulnerable—to let me demonstrate to him that he belongs to me.".

Rhea's expression softens in pain, but her voice remains firm. "I know you're in pain. I know you always crave control—but this obsession… it's devouring you. I've seen you spin out of control, but this… this is on another level."

Priya's voice cracks, each syllable laced with desperation. "I can't help it. Every look, every pause—it's a confession. My whole world shifts when he's around."

Rhea slams the journal closed. "You promised me you'd tell me when it got too out of hand. Well, here we are now, Priya." She pushes the book into her chest, her eyes burning. "You can do better than this. You're not a predator."

Priya's breath hitches, tears welling. She nods, her voice shaking: "I'll try. I promise."
Rhea breathes out, the thunder of the storm mirroring her relief and residual fear. 

"Good," she whispers.

 "Let's get you out of here before you write yourself into a cell you can't escape.”

Outside, rain beats against the windows as Priya takes her place in the broken stillness of her own making—her own dark desires exposed, her friend's passionate love the only grip in the storm.

I wait for them under the flickering streetlamp outside the back entrance—my sanctuary, now turned stage. Rhea arrives first, same trench coat, eyes bright with something like fear. Then Anika bounces in, hair like a neon sign, four tote bags of macarons slung over her arms. Sara glides up quietly, notebook in hand. Dev rounds the corner last, phone glowing with missives of concern.

They’ve come for me.

I should feel grateful, right? Instead my skin prickles—as if they’re stepping into my lair. My secret power shed bare.

Rhea crosses to me. “Priya, what the fuck is going on?” Her voice trembles on the edge of wrath and worry. “You’re spiraling.”

I smile—a slow curve of teeth. “I’m alive, Rhea. Isn’t that enough?”

Anika hoists her macarons. “We bought these,” she says, twirling a lavender swirl on her finger. “Sugar and petals—your favorites. Eat up before you write another murder poem.”

Sara steps forward. “We’re not here to scold,” she says, calm as dawn. “We’re here because you stopped showing up. You ghosted us.”

Dev folds his arms. “And because you’re texting me at 3 AM like you need to rewrite your vows in blood.”

I laugh—harsh, hollow. “You don’t understand. I’m crafting something… intense.”

Rhea’s eyes flash. “This intensity is devouring you. We found your journal.”

I freeze. The word “found” tastes like betrayal. “Did you read it?” I hiss.

Anika bounces a macaron. “We skimmed. We care. But some lines—Priya, ‘I will make him bleed truth’—that’s not romance. That’s violence.”

A sharp laugh tears free. “It is violence—against his defenses. Against his fear. Isn’t that what love should be?”

Sara’s face is gentle steel. “It’s obsession. You’re crossing a line. We love you. But this can’t go on.”

Dev’s voice cuts in: “We are your friends—your damn family. And we will not watch you destroy yourself over some… trickle of a heartbeat.”

My chest tightens. I taste their fear as clearly as I taste the cardamom on his lip. My heartbeat drums in my ears—an anthem to my own madness.

I reach out, fingers trembling. “I’m sorry,” I say, the words strange on my tongue. “I wanted him to feel everything. I wanted to see him unmasked.”

Rhea steps closer, her hand on my shoulder firm and warm. “You don’t need to rip someone’s soul open to be seen. We see you. All of you—loving, wounded, magnificent. You’re allowed to be yourself without this… theater of blood.”

Anika hands me a macaron. “Eat. Hell, eat three. Then breathe. Then let us help you.”

Sara opens her notebook. “We’ve scheduled you a session with Mira. She’s—” She hesitates. “She’s great with… boundaries.”

Dev nods. “And if you ever feel that itch to write him into your veins again, call us. We’ll come running. Promise.”

They form a circle around me—four pillars of light in the drenching night. I taste the macaron’s sugar on my tongue, feel their concern folding around me. The truth erupts in my chest: I don’t have to crucify him to be worshipped. I’m more than this hunger.

I close my eyes and inhale the storm‑touched air. “Thank you,” I whisper. My voice cracks, but it’s not weakness—it’s awakening.

Rhea squeezes my shoulder. “Now come on—let’s get out of this weather before you write another sonnet of ruin.”

I let them lead me back into the warm glow of the city, each step heavier with promise. Behind us, the rain pounds the pavement—a frantic applause to a choice I’m finally brave enough to make.

From now on, every breath he takes tightens the knot in my chest. He isn’t just someone I want—he’s someone I need. Soulmates, I whisper to the dark corners of my mind, even though our lips have never met and our voices have never tangled in confession.