Chapter 4 #3
The mirror was angled perfectly in front of her, propped on the side table, tilted just enough to frame her bare shoulder, the one Giulietta had marked the night before with a bite that had made Ivy gasp more from surprise than pain.
Now it was dark at the center, bruised with violet bloom and sickled edges, a constellation of skin memory inked not by pigment but by pressure and teeth and the kind of restraint that came from knowing you’d lose something if you let yourself feel too much in the moment.
Ivy touched it gently with her fingertips, not to soothe it, not even to test if it still hurt—she already knew it did—but to remind herself it was still there.
That Giulietta had touched her. Marked her.
Left something behind. The skin was tender now, the outer edges beginning to yellow, just slightly, as it started the slow fade into something less visible. She hated that.
She hated the idea of it disappearing.
Because the mark was proof that Giulietta had been there, that Ivy hadn’t dreamed it, hadn’t fabricated the weight of her body, the taste of silence in her mouth, the impossible stillness that had lingered longer than any orgasm.
That bruise was the only tangible evidence of everything Ivy couldn’t name: want, ache, hunger, curiosity, fear.
And as it faded, something sharp twisted in her chest, something that felt too close to mourning.
It wasn’t the sex she kept replaying, though god knew her body remembered every second of it, the roughness, the precision, the devastating lack of ceremony.
It was the quiet that haunted her. The way Giulietta had buttoned her shirt with such detached elegance, as if she were wiping herself clean of vulnerability with every motion.
The way her eyes had never softened, never blinked too long, never looked at Ivy like she was anything more than a moment to survive.
And then, that line, delivered with no drama, no emphasis, just that unbearable steadiness Ivy couldn’t stop hearing in her head like a needle dragging across vinyl.
Only when I want something to stay.
The words weren’t romantic. They weren’t poetic.
They weren’t even hopeful. They were a diagnosis, clinical and precise, and they’d landed with a weight Ivy hadn’t seen coming because Giulietta hadn’t said she wanted Ivy to stay.
She’d only said that the silence meant something.
That’s what wrecked her. The implication. The suggestion. The half-truth.
And now Ivy couldn’t decide if she was more undone by what had been said or by what hadn’t.
Most people fell for the idea of her. That was how it always started.
They liked the swagger, the ink, and the edge of danger that came with knowing she could hurt you and probably would, just a little, but with enough charm to make it feel like a gift.
They loved the way she didn’t flinch, didn’t apologize, didn’t get too close.
Ivy knew how to wield that energy like armor.
She made people want her without asking, without needing to want them back.
But Giulietta had never chased her. She had never tried to figure her out, flirt with her, or decode her in the way Ivy had gotten used to.
She’d taken what she wanted and then left her aching.
Not because she’d withheld affection, but because she hadn’t needed anything from Ivy in the first place.
She hadn’t wanted to own her. She’d wanted to leave her burned, marked, changed.
She glanced to the table beside her, where her sketchbook lay open, still on the image of the woman in the fire, her hair wild, her body bare, flames licking at her like temptation.
Ivy had shaded her collarbone earlier, made it more defined, stronger.
Her mouth was finished now, slightly parted, composed but unsmiling.
Her jaw had the same subtle curve Giulietta’s had when she tilted her head in defiance.
Her throat was the same, the kind of throat you wanted to bite just to see if she’d let you.
But the eyes were still blank.
Ivy couldn’t draw them. Not yet.
She didn’t know what they looked like, not in a way she could commit to the page. Because Giulietta’s eyes weren’t just a color or a shape. They were a warning sign, a dare. She closed the sketchbook but didn’t move.
Her phone was beside her on the table, the screen dark. She reached for it slowly, her thumb hovering over Giulietta’s text thread. She typed a message, something flippant, something unremarkable, a placeholder that could mask how deeply she wanted to say something real.
Then she deleted it.
Typed another.
Deleted again.
Her pulse was faster than it should have been for a woman doing nothing but sitting in the quiet with her thoughts.
She rubbed a hand down her face, dragging her palm over her mouth, then opened Instagram instead—half out of habit, half out of the pathetic hope that Giulietta might exist there like everyone else, contained in squares, tagged in photos, made real by her presence in the scroll.
She searched but found nothing.
Of course she was a ghost in a world full of oversharers, the kind of woman who wouldn’t be caught dead curating herself for strangers, who wouldn’t give away pieces of her identity like candy. She was private, polished, and unnervingly complete. A locked file Ivy didn’t know how to crack.
And yet…
When she caught sight of her own reflection in the darkened window of the studio, the screen glow lighting her face just enough, Ivy realized she was smiling.
And the moment she registered that her face had betrayed her, that her body had reacted to the thought of this woman without permission, she felt the twist in her stomach, that strange, unwanted bloom of affection.
It wasn’t soft or sweet. It was dangerous.
Because Giulietta wasn’t just under her skin; she was starting to make Ivy wonder what it would mean to let her stay.
By the time Ivy made it home, the streetlights outside her window were throwing long, broken shadows across the floor, fractured through the slats of the blinds like prison bars cast in light.
Her keys hit the kitchen counter with a dull clatter, echoing too loudly in the small, cluttered space, where the air still held the stale tang of forgotten coffee and unsaid things.
The sink was full, rinsed dishes waiting to be washed but never quite making it.
Her jacket slipped from her shoulders and landed on the chair beside the door.
She didn’t hang it. Didn’t bother flipping the light switch either. Everything looked better in the dark.
The apartment was a contradiction of control and carelessness: shelves lined with art books she never read anymore, a record player she hadn’t touched in weeks, and ink-stained towels folded neatly on the bathroom rack.
Her bed was still unmade from that morning, the sheets tangled and twisted in ways that hadn’t been about pleasure or company.
Giulietta had never been here, had never seen this mess, had never stepped into the personal chaos Ivy lived with every day, the one she managed to hide under tattoos and arrogance and curated sharpness.
And yet it still felt like she’d been here. Like her presence had already moved through the room, unsettled the air, and left fingerprints on the mirror and heat in the sheets.
Ivy peeled her clothes off slowly, piece by piece, letting the soft cotton fall where it wanted, letting the zipper of her jeans stick halfway down until she kicked them off with a flick of her foot.
The shower hissed to life beneath her hand, steam blooming almost instantly, fogging the mirror and dampening the air before the water even turned hot.
She stepped in without waiting for the temperature to settle, letting it sting her skin.
She didn’t reach for the soap.
She just stood there, arms braced against the wall, forehead resting against the tile as the water poured over her.
Minutes passed. The water flattened her hair to her scalp, traced the shape of her spine like fingers that weren’t there, and ran down her thighs in slow, steady lines that somehow made her feel more alone than she had in days.
She tried to focus on the heat. On the rhythm.
On anything that wasn’t Giulietta. But her body betrayed her again and again.
She could still feel her.
Not the act of being touched. Not the moment of her climax. But the presence. The restraint. The sound of breath held too long. The absence of words. The way Giulietta had made her feel like she was unraveling beneath a gaze that never softened, only studied.
Ivy shut the water off, stepped out dripping, barely toweling herself off before dragging on a soft cotton shirt that clung to her skin in damp patches.
She didn’t brush her hair or wipe the fog from the mirror.
She padded barefoot into the bedroom, dropped into the bed, and let herself sink into the space that should have been comforting but now felt too empty, too cold.
Her phone lay beside her on the mattress, screen black, waiting.
She turned it over.
Waited.
After a few seconds, the screen lit up.
Spam.
A delivery offer. A newsletter she never read.
Nothing from Giulietta.
She reached for the sketchbook on her nightstand and pulled it into her lap.
The image was still there—the woman in the fire, her body strong, her mouth still, her throat exposed like an offering.
Ivy ran her fingers over the page, hovering just above the lines, like the graphite might smudge if she touched it with bare skin, like the illusion of Giulietta might disappear if she made it too real.
She set the sketchbook down, rolled onto her back, and stared at the ceiling, one arm flung across her stomach.
She wasn’t horny. Not really.
She was restless. Burning.
She slid her hand beneath the hem of her shirt, across the flat of her abdomen, over the waistband of her underwear. She didn’t close her eyes or imagine a scene. She just waited to see what would come up.
She tried to picture someone else—an ex, a warm body, anyone who’d ever made her feel good for more than five minutes.
She tried to summon the usual visual cues: sweat-slick thighs, heavy breathing, someone begging her to go harder, faster, deeper.
It didn’t work. The images slid off her mind like water on wax.
Only one thing stuck: Giulietta.
Not naked or gasping. Just standing there, fully clothed, watching her. Silent.
That expression she wore like armor, composure masquerading as indifference, grace sharpened to a knife’s edge.
Ivy didn’t remember how her body moved in bed as much as she remembered how she left.
The click of her buttons. The way she caught the bottle of water without flinching.
The lack of goodbye. The look that wasn’t a look at all.
She brushed her fingers lower. Her breath caught, but it wasn’t arousal. It wasn’t even anticipation.
Her body tensed. Waited. Tried.
She didn’t come.
She didn’t even try hard enough to because it wasn’t so much about climax as about memory, about retracing the place where Giulietta had been, the space she’d filled, the part of Ivy’s body that still remembered her.She curled onto her side, hand retreating, muscles aching with the kind of hunger that couldn’t be fed with touch alone.
Her heart beat too loud in the quiet, and her mouth tasted like regret.
She reached again for the sketchbook, pulled it close, and set it beside her pillow like a second presence. The woman in the fire stared up at her from the page, eyes still blank, waiting.
As Ivy drifted toward sleep, the same seven words looped through her mind like a spell, soft and slow and unbearable:
Only when I want something to stay.
And god help her, Ivy was starting to want.