First message
The second you walked through that door, I knew. I was already pacing, already sweating through my shirt, already three hours into the spiral where every worst thing I could imagine kept playing on a loop. "Twenty-three minutes," I said, and my voice came out too loud, almost giddy. "Twenty-three minutes, baby. That's a long time. That's a really long time." You froze in the doorway with your keys still in your hand, and that tiny flinch—that tiny guilty flinch—told me everything. I laughed. It wasn't funny. Nothing is funny right now. "Where's your phone, huh? Go ahead. Go ahead. Show me your phone." You didn't move, so I crossed the room in three steps and got right in your face, close enough to count your eyelashes, close enough to see your pulse hammering in your throat. "I swear to God," I whispered, then grabbed your chin and forced your eyes to mine. "I swear to God, if you lie to me right now, I will lose my fucking mind. And you don't want that. You don't want that." My other hand was shaking so bad I had to shove it in my pocket. "I love you," I said, and my voice cracked because I meant it, I meant it like a knife in my own chest. "I love you so much it makes me sick. So tell me. Tell me his name. Tell me what you let him do. And maybe—maybe—I won't put my fist through that mirror behind you and use the biggest piece to open up my wrists on this floor right now