It felt as if three years never happened.
I told myself to hate it. To see it as control. But every timemy phone lit up, the part of me that hated them was drowned out by the part of me that had been starving.
I loved it. I hated that I loved it.
Waking up wasn’t empty anymore. The days had a thread through them, stitching me back to something I thought I’d lost. It was dangerous how quickly my body remembered. Dangerous how quickly I missed them.
And the truth was the same whether I said it or not.
I had missed them every day for the last three years.
I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, then I reached for my phone without thinking.
For a few moments I stared at the chat name:OURS
I opened it. This time, I couldn’t stop myself.
Are you awake?
Luca: You okay?
Bastion: Always for you.
I didn’t think—I just flipped the camera. A short video. Close-cropped, nothing but skin: collarbone, the drag of my fingers down my stomach, over the curve of my hip, tracing to my thigh. No words. I hit send before my brain could catch up.
Bastion: Fuck.
Luca: Baby, what did we do to deserve that?
Bastion: do it again with sound.
My pulse spiked. I should have been embarrassed. Should have deleted the whole thing.
You reminded me I had a voice.
Bastion: Did they listen when you spoke?
Luca: We can make them.
Bastion: Force them on their knees. Take their hearing if they don’t.
Luca: Hearing your voice as their last sound is too good for them
You two make me smile
Luca: Good.
Bastion: I miss seeing it.
Bastion: And we miss hearing you beg, baby.
The phone buzzed again. This time, not with a message. An incoming call.
OURS — Audio.
My throat tightened. A three-way line. Both of them waiting.
I froze. Thumb hovering. If I answered, there’d be no hiding behind text. They’d hear me. Every nervous breath.
