Chapter 28
SOREN
Adrian has a death wish.
I don’t mean that metaphorically.
I mean it in the way a man moves when he doesn’t understand the consequences of his own behavior. The way he opens his mouth, the way he carries himself.
He’s a problem in the most literal sense—an obstruction that continues to exist because no one has removed it yet.
Men like him don’t require deep analysis. They reveal themselves through repetition—same patterns, same mistakes, same quiet insistence that they deserve more than they’ve earned.
I watch him like something that doesn’t understand where it stands in the hierarchy. The way he speaks to her. The way he positions himself in her space. The casual entitlement threaded through every interaction, as if proximity has given him permission to define the terms of her life.
It hasn’t.
He just hasn’t been corrected.
And the longer I watch him, the more convinced I am that he simply doesn’t know that yet.
I’m getting tired of watching him treat my beautiful little stray the way he does.
There’s a particular kind of man who mistakes proximity for ownership. Who thinks that because he offered shelter—temporary, conditional, self-serving shelter—that he’s somehow elevated himself.
That he looks like the good guy.
That anyone with eyes would look at the situation and think he saved her.
The level of delusion is almost impressive.
He isn’t necessary.
He’s convenient. That’s all.
I’ve been skeptical of him from the start. Not because of anything she says. But because of everything she doesn’t.
The hesitations.
The way she edits herself in real time.
The way she shrinks his behavior down into something manageable, something reasonable, something she can explain away.
Men like him rely on that.
They thrive on it.
Ironic. He’s nothing special.
Not even slightly.
I don’t need her to explain it. I don’t need a full account of what happens in that house or how he speaks to her when no one else is listening.
People show themselves in fragments.
Tone. Timing. Absence.
I have enough.
Her messages are useful.
Not the ones she sends me—those are already filtered, already shaped by what she thinks matters.
The others are cleaner. Conversations with people who aren’t inside it with her.
Friends.
Plural.
People who have watched from the outside, who’ve had the luxury of distance, who didn’t have to live inside it the way she does.
“I never liked that guy.”
“He always seemed off.”
“It seems like he enjoys controlling you.”
“He acted like he was doing you a favor just by being your friend. Like you’re some kind of charity case.”
“He doesn’t deserve you.”
And now he’s made the mistake of getting comfortable.
Comfort exposes men like him. It loosens them. Makes them careless. They stop managing how they’re perceived and start acting in ways that are closer to the truth of who they really are.
That’s when the pattern becomes obvious.
The subtle corrections when she speaks. The way he redirects her.
The quiet implication that her choices require his approval. The expectation that she adjusts herself to maintain his version of stability.
He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to.
Control doesn’t require volume. It requires consistency.
And he’s consistent.
So am I.
The difference is, I understand what I’m doing.
He’s predictable in the way he treats every element of his life.
Arrogant without substance.
The kind of man who fails and calls it independence.
It’s a pattern.
Men like him don’t grow.
They just relocate. Move onto the next thing.
It seems like he’s found his latest landing spot now. This one might even stick.
Someone just as insufferable as he is. There’s a certain symmetry to that. Two men convinced they’re the smartest people in every room they enter. Neither of them aware how transparent that looks from the outside.
But let’s be honest—how many ayahuasca trips does one man need before enlightenment? Because at the rate he’s going, he’s not finding clarity. He’s dissolving whatever structure was left in his brain.
Soon there won’t be anything left to fix.
One day, he might have to acknowledge the thing he’s seeking simply doesn’t exist.
No amount of therapy—no retreat, no self-help doctrine—is going to correct what’s fundamentally broken in him.
Despite his flaws, Ivy minimizes his behavior.
Reduces the edges so she can live inside it.
It’s a survival instinct—an effective one, in the right context.
But he’s not the right context.
He’s a misogynistic, condescending, self-appointed authority on a woman he’s never understood.
And worse—he’s comfortable. Comfortable speaking to her the way he does. Comfortable making her feel small. Comfortable occupying space that should never have been his in the first place.
And that—that is where his luck runs out.
He’s upsetting my Ivy.
My.
The word settles easily.
Naturally.
And in that sense, he is extraordinarily lucky. Lucky that the only thing I’m doing is watching. Lucky that distance exists between us. Lucky that I’ve chosen—for now—to be patient.
Anyone else who made her feel a fraction of that wouldn’t still be standing.
Would not be given the grace of continuing their life uninterrupted.
Wouldn’t be breathing.
What I’m offering him right now—this restraint—is charity. Nothing more. And it has an expiration date.
She needs to leave.
Soon.
Before I decide that distance isn’t enough anymore.
Before I decide to solve the problem myself.
Because the truth is, he’s not a complicated man.
And men like him are very easy to remove.
I don’t want to spook her.
That’s the only reason I’ve been so patient.
He’s running out of time.