Tahlia
Idon’t put the mirror back in the box.
The lid remains open beside me, a black mouth that already knows it won’t be fed closure.
I don’t smash it. Don’t scream. Don’t burn the whole apartment down the way part of me wants to.
That part paces somewhere behind my ribs, clawing, furious, incandescent, but it doesn’t take the wheel.
I just… sit with it.
In silence.
The kind of silence that doesn’t feel empty, only occupied.
In skin that doesn’t feel like mine anymore.
Because now I know what it is. Not just a mirror. Not just a symbol. Not just some old object he took to prove a point. It’s a recording. Not of sound. Not of image. Of something quieter.
Of me.
The version of me I didn’t know he’d already touched.
The version of me that still believed I was alone in the room when I cried on the floor and told myself I was fine.
When I bent over the sink brushing my teeth in nothing but a T-shirt and an open wound.
When I looked myself in the eye and said you’re safe now, over and over, like it would become true if I just said it with enough certainty.
That was never safety. It was rehearsal.
He kept that.
That girl.
That lie.
And now he’s given it back, polished and boxed, like a gift I never wanted, like a prophecy I already lived through without knowing I was being watched the entire time.
I touch the surface of the mirror again.
It’s cold.
Cold in the way truth is cold—unconcerned with comfort, uninterested in mercy.
It always is.
It never reflects what I expect.
And today… I see something new.
Not just exhaustion.
Not just fear.
Not just that haunted shine in my eyes I’ve been trying to blink away since I first sat in that fucking velvet booth.
I see hunger.
It sits there quietly, patient, undemanding, like it knows I’ll come to it eventually.
Not the kind you feed.
The kind you starve. The kind you bury. The kind you lie about even to yourself.
I don’t want to want him.
But I do.
And it’s not because he’s beautiful.
It’s not because he said my name like it already belonged to him.
It’s not even because of the way my thighs clench when I remember the sound of his voice.
It’s because of the silence he leaves behind.
Because no one’s ever carved me open so quietly before.
Because no one’s ever made me feel like my thoughts weren’t my own without ever touching me.
And now… I don’t know where I end and he begins.
The boundaries feel smudged, like fingerprints on glass that won’t wipe away no matter how hard I scrub.
Because I can’t stop thinking about what else he’s taken.
And worse — what I’d let him take next.
Not because I’m weak.
But because I’m wired for this.
Because I grew up surviving people like him, and now that I’ve seen one who doesn’t lie about what he is… I don’t know how to go back to pretending I want anything else.
I close the mirror box.
The sound is soft. Final.
Stand.
My legs move before I decide to let them.
Walk to the kitchen.
The floor creaks beneath my weight like it’s remembering other footsteps.
Turn on the sink.
And rinse the mirror under cold water like I’m baptising it. Like I’m baptising myself.
The water beads and runs, but nothing lifts. Nothing loosens.
But nothing comes clean.
Not in this house.
Not in this story.
And definitely not in this body.
Because I still haven’t told anyone.
Because part of me doesn’t want to.
Because telling someone would mean dragging this into the light.
And I’m starting to wonder if the dark is where I belong now.
I leave the mirror on the windowsill like it belongs there.
Like it always has.
As if this apartment was always waiting for it to return.
I don’t dry it. I don’t hide it. I don’t cover it with a cloth like I’m scared of what it might reflect next.
I just let it drip.
Let it catch the light like something holy and wrong, like an altar I didn’t mean to build but somehow know how to kneel at anyway.
And I don’t look back at it when I move through the apartment like I’m not thinking about it every second — how it waits there like a pulse, like a dare, like a part of me I didn’t know I was missing until he gave it back.
The walls feel too close.
They lean in, conspiratorial.
The air is too warm.
Too still.
I haven’t left this place in three days.
Not since him.
Not since the room.
Not since I looked into his eyes and saw the exact shade of control I’ve spent my entire life pretending I could survive.
I pull on a jacket and shoes I don’t remember buying and slide my phone into my back pocket without checking it again. If he wanted to message me, he would. If he wanted to be outside waiting for me, he would.
He doesn’t need to tell me anything anymore.
Because everything around me already speaks in his voice.
The floors creak like his laugh.
The keys in the dish jangle like the hook when it tapped the glass table between us.
The door sounds like a decision.
One I’ve already made.
I step into the hallway and pause, listening like I might hear something.
Footsteps.
Breathing.
A whisper behind the wall.
There’s nothing.
But I feel it anyway.
That pressure on my spine.
That weight in the air.
That slow, thick sense that someone’s already following — even if it’s just in my bloodstream.
I walk.
Down the stairs.
Each step feels counted.
Out of the building.
Into the cold.
And the sky doesn’t feel like it used to.
It feels heavier.
Lower.
Like it’s watching too.
I don’t have a plan. I don’t know where I’m going. I just move like maybe that’ll be enough to break whatever curse I walked into. Like putting space between me and the apartment will loosen the thread that keeps pulling around my neck like a leash I never saw coming.
I make it two blocks before I stop.
Because I see it.
A car.
Black.
Idling at the kerb with tinted windows and the kind of presence that makes no sound but owns the silence anyway.
It doesn’t belong to the street. The street belongs to it.
It’s not marked.
Not obvious.
But it’s his.
I don’t need proof.
I just know.
And what’s worse — I don’t turn around.
I don’t run.
I just keep walking.
Slower now.
More aware of every step.
Like I’m performing for something I can’t see.
Like this whole street is a stage and he’s behind the curtain, watching me make the choice he already knew I would.
To keep going.
To keep pretending.
To not stop.
Because the moment I stop… I think he’ll open the door.
And I don’t know if I want him to.
Or if I’m already waiting for it.
I don’t look back.
I tell myself I won’t give him that.
I won’t look over my shoulder and check if the car is still there, if the engine’s still purring like a threat with patience, if he’s watching me through the black-glass windows with that expression — the one that doesn’t ask for anything but waits for everything, like he knows it’s already his.
I won’t look.
But my whole body wants to.
My muscles ache with it, like they’ve been clenched for days, like they’re sore from pretending I’m still free.
Like every step forward costs something I’ll never get back.
The streets blur.
The shopfronts don’t register. People walk past me in coats and boots and conversations I can’t hear because all the noise in my head is him.
His voice.
His hook.
The way he didn’t kiss me — but almost did.
The way he spoke like he was narrating my sins back to me, slow and low and deliberate, like he knew they weren’t confessions — they were invitations.
And I answered.
God, I answered.
I still am.
Because my feet keep walking and my legs keep moving and my head keeps turning, not enough to be obvious, just enough to feel it, that pull like a tether that’s not wrapped around my wrist but somewhere deeper — around my ribs, maybe, around my throat, somewhere soft and internal and too late to cut loose without tearing something vital.
I tell myself I’m just going to the shop.
I tell myself I need milk. Cigarettes. Soap.
Anything that sounds normal.
Anything that doesn’t sound like I’m running from something invisible and headed straight for something worse.
But when I get to the corner, I don’t turn.
I keep walking.
Keep drifting.
Like a girl waiting to be found.
And then I hear it.
The door.
The soft click of a car opening behind me.
The sound lands between my shoulder blades like a hand.
I stop.
Not like I’ve been caught.
Like I’ve been chosen.
Like a marionette waiting for the string to pull.
I don’t turn.
I don’t have to.
Because I hear the steps.
Measured.
Unhurried.
Boots on concrete.
He doesn’t call my name.
Doesn’t say anything at all.
But I feel it when he gets close enough to inhale me.
That pause.
That stillness.
Like the world holds its breath just long enough to watch me fall.
I turn my head a fraction.
And there he is.
Standing close enough to touch me, but he doesn’t.
Dressed in black like the night built him out of shadows and violence, face half-lit by the pale, overcast light, and eyes exactly as cold and unblinking as I remember — like he’s not surprised I stopped.
Like he knew I would.
And that’s what makes my knees weak.
Not the fear.
The accuracy.
He knows me.
Better than I do.
And I don’t know if I want to run or fucking kneel.
He tilts his head, mouth curved just a hint.
Like he’s proud of me.
Like I passed the first test just by not screaming.
And when he finally speaks, it’s low. Smooth.
“Get in the car, Tahlia.”