"Don't touch me!" I screamed, crossing my hands in front of me as a shield.
He chuckled darkly.
Not bothering to listen to anything I just said and ignoring my actions, he brought his hands to my face.
"And tell me, what are you gonna do?" he says a...
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••• :: ୨•୧ :: •••
Later that day, after he'd left, I found myself alone in the house again. The silence felt a little too loud, as if the very walls were absorbing every sound I made, amplifying the absence in the air. The emptiness of the place pressed on me more than I expected, gnawing at my insides in a way that was uncomfortable and foreign. I wandered aimlessly from room to room, haunting a space that wasn't even mine, feeling the weight of the quiet crowding in around me. The boredom crept in like an unwelcome fog, dulling my senses and turning the vibrant colors of my thoughts into muted grays.
The faint hum of the maids cleaning in the background offered a semblance of life. Their chatter floated through the house as they tidied up, bringing an almost comforting rhythm to the stillness. As they dusted shelves and vacuumed carpets, it was as if they were distilling the memories that lingered in the air, absorbing the heaviness of the silence with their bright laughter and easy banter. Yet, even their presence couldn't fully fill the void he had left behind.
Once their voices faded into the distance, the quiet returned like a familiar ache, settling into the corners of the room and wrapping around me. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy my own company—I did. There were evenings spent with a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other that I cherished. But today felt different. There was something profoundly lifeless about being by myself without him there, as if his presence had been the spark that brought everything to life. Now, each corner of the house seemed to echo the void left by his absence, making mundane objects—a half-empty mug, a book left slightly askew—feel somehow loaded with significance.
Desperate for distraction, I picked up my phone, scrolling through social media feeds filled with images of other people's lives as if they were small glimpses of a brighter world outside my own. But even that proved futile; the posts felt hollow, the laughter and smiles a stark contrast to the stillness around me. I flipped through TV shows I didn't really care about, their plotlines blurring together in an indistinct haze, and even picked up an old book that had gathered a fine layer of dust on the shelf. The words washed over me without sinking in, a faded melody that no longer resonated. Nothing seemed to hold my attention, no matter how hard I tried to escape the sense of entrapment that was slowly ensnaring me.
The house felt so unforgivingly empty without him, and I found myself glancing at the clock more than once, waiting for something—anything—to disrupt the monotonous flow of time. Each tick echoed like a countdown, compounding my restless longing for his return, relentless and insistent. I imagined how the air would shift when he was back—the weight of his presence filling the silence, the way the room naturally adjusted around him, as if it couldn't bear to hold itself in stillness without him. The way I did.
I wandered back into the living room, aimlessly flipping through a magazine I'd left on the coffee table minutes ago. The pages were glossy, the words a jumble of opinions and lifestyle tips that felt out of place—like they were supposed to mean something but didn't resonate. I glanced up at the clock on the wall, its ticking now somehow louder than before, marking the time in slow, steady intervals that reverberated through the stillness of the room.
