I wake to crying.
Right here in my bedroom, maybe six feet from where I’m lying with my face to the wall.
The noise is raw and broken, the kind of sobbing that comes after hours of it, when the person doing it doesn’t have the energy left to be loud. Just hitching breaths and wet, smothered tears.
Nicole.
I know it immediately.
I don’t move.
My first instinct is to roll over, to sit up and ask if she’s okay, but I catch myself before my body can follow through. If I startle her, she’ll disappear. Drop through the floor again or blink out of existence or whatever it is she does when she gets spooked. And right now, listening to her cry like this, I don’t want that to happen.
So I stay exactly where I am. Eyes open, staring at the plaster right in front of my face, breathing as softly as I can.
“I’m so lonely,” she whispers.
Her voice cracks on the last word.
“I’m so fucking lonely.”
My chest tightens. I want to say that I’m right here, that she doesn’t have to be lonely anymore, but I keep my mouth shut. If she wanted me to know she was here, she would’ve said my name or shaken me awake.
This isn’t for me. This is her.
“Twenty-two years alive,” she whispers. “Twenty-seven fucking years alone and nobody stayed.”
The crying ebbs for a second, like she’s trying to pull herself together, but then it breaks open again.
“He’s gonna leave too. He’s gonna figure out I’m real and then he’ll run just like everyone else.”
She means me.
I keep my breathing steady, trying to parse what I’m hearing through the tears. There’s a rhythm to her breathing that doesn’t quite match the sobbing anymore. A different kind of breathlessness underneath it. Read the latest chapters at g.com.
And then I hear it. Soft, wet friction. Repetitive.
My brain catches up a second later.
Oh.
The realization hits me all at once, and I have to actively stop myself from tensing up. I keep my eyes fixed on the wall, my breathing unchanged, but now I’m hyper-aware of every rustle in the room. The quiet gasps. The shift of movement. The way her weeping blends with small, frantic noises that are definitely not just crying.
“You want me, right?” she whispers. “Austin?”
My heart hammers against my ribs. I’m about to open my mouth, about to turn over and tell her yes, that I do want her, that she doesn’t have to be alone…
“No,” she breathes out, sharper this time. “No, I can’t… I can’t wake him. I can’t let him see me like this.”
A whimper escapes her throat, muffled almost immediately. I hear her hand clamp over her mouth, but the moan that follows is still audible, just more restrained.
The rhythm continues. Needy and lonely and so raw it leaves an ache behind my ribs.
I lie there completely still, barely breathing, listening to her fall apart close behind me.
“I’m going to make you mine, Austin.”
Her voice breaks on my name. A declaration whispered into the dark like she’s trying to convince herself it’s possible.
“Fuck,” she groans.
What follows is muffled and rushed. Her breathing accelerates, turning ragged and sharp. The wet friction intensifies. Her gasps come faster, higher, breaking into small cries that she’s not even trying to stifle anymore. Read the latest chapters at novelping . com.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck…”
The last word stretches out into a moan that makes my entire body lock up with tension.
Her orgasm hits like a wave breaking. It goes on longer than I expect, shuddering gasps and quiet whimpers that gradually taper off into silence.
Then nothing.
Just Nicole trying to catch her breath.
I wait, still frozen against the wall, my own heart pounding so hard I’m convinced she can hear it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers after what feels like forever. Her voice is thick with tears again. “I’m so sorry…”
The presence in the room shifts. I can feel her moving, standing maybe, though I don’t hear footsteps.
“I’m disgusting,” she says. “I’m so fucking disgusting and you’re going to hate me and leave and I’ll be alone again forever.”
The crying starts up again, hushed now but somehow worse. More defeated.
Her voice fades. Not all at once, but like she’s moving away from me, drifting backward through the room even though I don’t hear the door. The shallow breaths become faint, more distant, until they’re barely there at all.
Then they’re gone completely.
I wait another ten seconds, counting them out in my head, before I let myself move.
I roll over slowly, turning my head to look at the rest of the bedroom.
Empty.
Just my bed, my desk, my gaming laptop sitting closed on top of it. The faint orange glow from the streetlight outside filters through the window, painting everything in dim amber. No Nicole. No presence. Nothing but the normal quiet of a house at night.
“Whoa,” I say out loud to the empty room. “That was interesting.”