No warm body curled against my chest. No soft snores puffing against my throat. Just stale air and pale winter light bleeding through the penthouse windows.
I roll over, hoping to find Ariel’s indentation still pressed into the Egyptian cotton. My fist closes around cold emptiness instead. Just yesterday, I woke up in a different country, with her tangled around me. The pang of missing that is a knife to the gut.
I trace the barbed wire line around my throat. Her fingertips danced here yesterday. Not recoiling. Not calculating. Loving. As if my scars were constellations instead of proof that I’m irredeemably f****d-up.
Further proof of my insanity comes when my fingers wander higher—and I realize I’m smiling. f*****g smiling, like a lovesick fool, as I stare at my bedroom ceiling and th
