from a "songwriting session," smelling of unfamiliar jasmine perfume and a

hloe-love," he mumbled into my hair, his breath

lder-length. Kendra's was long, a cas

nfusing m

enly clicked into place: the late nights, the hushed phone calls,

d sighed, a soft, contented sound that had made my blood r

, t

I lay there, rigid, as he snored beside me,

t wasn't locked. He was careless, or arrogant

ecording studio I didn't recognize. Lyrics to a new song, supposedly for me, with the

urrounded by the digital evidence of hi

"Chloe, baby, it's not what it loo

f weakness, that he'd been under pressure with the new alb

of my life, a life I'd chosen over m

was still silent, but I could have walk

n. Too... angry. I couldn't just let him of

tleground. Every lyric, every chord, was loaded with unspoken accusations. The love, already decaying,

relessness that felt like another slap in the face. Each betrayal

into a cacophony of noise, each note a fresh stab of pain

decay, the Dreamweaver stirred. That familiar,

Chloe. The exit portal

ars I thought had dried up long ago streaming dow