Bella remembered him in fragments, but always the ones that hurt the most. The way Chris groaned when he came inside her, shaking like the world was too small to hold them both.
The way his breath tangled in her ear as he whispered her name, like prayer and sin colliding. The way his body pressed her into the mattress as though he wanted her printed on his skin forever.
No one had ever touched her like that. No one had ever made her lose herself until she forgot where her own body ended and his began.
He made her climax over and over again, as if he had memorized every map of her. He whined when he felt her shudder, needy, almost helpless, and it made her believe she was the center of his gravity.
Now she lay alone in her bed, sheets cold, body aching, replaying those nights like torture tapes.
How could she live without him? Without the man who made her body sing as if it belonged in his hands? Without the man who made her think love wasn't only words but flesh, sweat, and breath?
And the bitterest part was not that he left. It was that he didn't fight.
Not once did he say, I'm sorry. Let's fix this. I can't lose you. He let her slip, like she was disposable. Like all those nights, all those orgasms, and all that worship of her skin meant nothing.
Tears came again. She buried her face in the pillow, angry for still crying over someone already letting go.
And then—her phone buzzed.
Adrian.
The name alone made her chest tighten. She had ignored him for days, but he was relentless. She unlocked the phone anyway, against her better judgment. The message glowed on the screen like a trap:
"Bet you can't sleep. I bet you remember the way your body melts when a man takes his time with you. You know I'd ruin you all over again, right? Don't lie to yourself, Bella—you're the kind of woman men should worship, and Chris never learned how. Let me remind you."
Her stomach churned. The words were sharp, lust-heavy, and dripping with temptation. Another message followed before she could even blink:
"Your pussy's too good to waste on heartbreak. You think I've forgotten? I still taste you every time I close my eyes."
She dropped the phone like it burned her. Her heart pounded with a cocktail of anger, shame, and an ache she hated to admit.
Yes, Adrian wanted her. Wanted her curves, her skin, her wetness. He would never get tired of digging until he had hollowed her out.
But he didn't want her. He didn't care about her broken heart or her unraveling world.
And she couldn't drown herself in his kind of wanting. Not now. Not ever.
Her hands trembled as she blocked him. The silence that followed was deafening, but it was better than letting him claw into her wounds.
She was already bleeding enough.
The next morning, her body betrayed her.
Fever gripped her like a jealous lover. Sweat soaked her sheets. Her head pounded. She tried to sit up, but the room spun. Food became tasteless, and water too heavy to swallow.
"Ma…" she croaked from her bed one afternoon.
Her mom appeared in the doorway, arms crossed. "Yes?"
"I don't feel fine."
"Of course you don't," her mum said, her tone flat. "Heartbreak is not paracetamol. You wanted to follow small boys with bad phones—now see."
Bella groaned and buried her face in her pillow. "God, if only you would take me now."
Still, her mother brought soup and checked her temperature. She whispered prayers at night when she thought Bella was asleep. It wasn't affection, but it was something.
Meanwhile, Chris turned into a ghost with a megaphone.
Her phone buzzed nonstop, day and night, with messages, calls, and missed calls. At one point, he even switched numbers and tried again.
Bella threw her phone under her pillow and hissed. "This guy is mad. He didn't fight for me when I was dying, but now he wants to disturb my ancestors with calls?"
Her friends who knew the story sent memes and motivational quotes: "Girl, block him. Heal." So she continued ignoring him.
Until he crossed the line.
He called her "Mum."
Bella sat in the living room, curled under a blanket. Her mother returned from church that Sunday morning. Her mum's face was unreadable, but she walked in with a sigh and dropped her bag on the sofa.
"Bella," she said, loosening her scarf.
"Yes, Ma."
"Pick up his calls."
Bella jolted upright, as if a current had shot through her. "What?!"
"Pick his calls," her mother repeated, her tone calm but sharp. "Hear what he has to say. If it makes sense, fine. Suppose it doesn't; block him forever. But stop torturing yourself."
Bella blinked, mouth wide open. This was the same woman who called Chris a wolf in sheep's skin, now telling her to answer his call?
"Ma, I don't—"
"Don't argue," her mother cut her off. "My phone cannot rest. Your phone cannot rest.
Even the church usher told me my phone vibrated in my bag during worship. If you won't do it for yourself, do it for my peace."
Bella stared at her mom and her buzzing phone on the table.
The irony was too much. The same woman who said Chris was useless now wanted her to pick up his calls for peace.
Bella picked up the phone, trembling.
It rang louder—louder—like it knew this was the moment.
Her thumb hovered over the green button.
I swear, her heart was doing press-ups in her chest. Part of her wanted to answer and finally hear his voice. Part of her tried to smash the phone against the wall.
Because she did not fear what he might say. Fear gripped her at what she might feel if he said it.
The phone wouldn't stop buzzing. The phone buzzed again and again on the wooden table. Each vibration felt like an unwanted heartbeat, reminding Bella of what she tried to bury.
Different numbers. Same desperation. Chris.
Her mother folded her arms and watched from afar, as if this were judgment day.
He was everywhere and nowhere. Blocked lines did not stop him. He used borrowed voices. He searched for cracks in the silence Bella built around herself.
She hated how her body reacted before her mind did. Even his voice in her imagination pulled at her chest. It tugged like strings she thought she had cut.
She finally picked up, but her silence was louder than any greeting. And Chris, true to form, filled it.
"Bells…" His voice carried a rough edge, like it was soaking in regret. "Please… unblock me. If you never want to talk to me again, unblock me. Don't shut me out like this."
Bella closed her eyes, pressing the phone harder to her ear. His voice sounded like home and heartbreak all at once—and she hated that she could still feel both.
Her heart lurched. But her lips curved into a bitter line.
"Why, Chris?" she asked, her tone like a knife dipped in honey. "So you can tell me again how I'm a beautiful girl who'll find a line of better men waiting? Or so you can remind me that my mother hates you? Which one this time?"
The silence that followed was heavier than his words. Bella leaned back, eyes to the ceiling, as if searching for the strength not to cave.
She could hear his breathing on the other end—ragged, impatient, desperate. In that moment, she realized love doesn't leave with a bang. It slips away in whispers, each cutting through brokenness's cracks.
The question was—would she let that whisper pull her back in? Or had Chris lost her forever?
Her hand trembled as she ended the call. The silence in the room was suffocating.
She thought the night was over until the phone buzzed again.
Another number. Another vibration is crawling through her bones.
Her stomach dropped when she saw the name.
Adrian.
The blocked man had found another line.
The message popped up at once: see
"I told you Chris would leave. But I didn't call to gloat. I called because you're in danger—and it's not from me."
Bella froze, phone slipping in her sweaty hand.
Her heart pounded hard enough to drown out her mother's humming in the next room.
Danger? From whom? From what?
For the first time that night, she couldn't tell what scared her more. Losing Chris, resisting Adrian, or the unseen shadow closing in.