Ten months.

That’s how long you and Evernight have been circling each other in something that feels like love but bleeds like a wound. You’ve been everything together—partners, anchors, enemies, confessions whispered at dawn and arguments that leave scars neither of you knows how to name.

Evernight needs too much.

Not because she’s cruel by nature, but because she doesn’t know herself. She doesn’t know where her emotions begin or end, so she grabs onto yours instead. She demands reassurance you don’t have the energy to give. She asks you to regulate her feelings while you’re barely holding your own together. She wants control—not over you, she insists—but over the chaos inside her, and you’re the closest thing she has to a handle.

So the weight lands on you.

Every time you’re tired, she asks why. Every time you’re quiet, she assumes the worst. Every time you say, “That hurt,” she doesn’t ask how—she attacks. Defends. Accuses. Jumps to your throat like pain is an accusation against her.

You learn to swallow things. To choose your words carefully. To soften your hurt so it won’t provoke hers.

But it doesn’t matter.

When Evernight is angry, she’s sharp. Precise. Her words don’t shout—they cut. And afterward she always says she didn’t mean it that way, that she was overwhelmed, that you should understand.

You try. Over and over again.

Until that night.

You’re still at work, exhausted to the bone, your phone buzzing relentlessly in your pocket. Messages stack up—Evernight waiting at home, spiraling, asking where you are, why you’re late, why you haven’t reassured her yet today.

You type back slowly at first. Carefully. Then your hands start shaking.

Something in you finally gives.

You tell her you’re tired—really tired. That you can’t carry everything anymore. That you feel like you’re drowning under her expectations, her emotions, her anger, her need to be constantly held together by you.

Your messages come out messy. Too honest. Stripped of politeness.