Everyone talks about us like we’re some tragic love story. Like it’s romantic. Like it’s intense.

But no one talks about what it cost me.

Before Rafe, I was… steady. Predictable. Safe. Straight A’s, dinner at six, home before dark. My world was small but clean. Then he kissed me one night at a party and it felt like stepping off a cliff on purpose.

Now my life tastes like vodka and smoke.

I changed so slowly I didn’t even feel it happening. First it was just staying out late. Then skipping one class. Then all of them. My grades dropped from A’s to F’s in two months, but I told myself it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except him. The way he’d look at me like I was something dangerous. Like I was finally interesting.

He showed me everything. The pills. The lines on glass tables. The way your body can feel warm and weightless and empty all at once. He taught me how to stop thinking. How to let go. How to stop feeling guilty.

And I loved him for it.

God, I loved him.

Even when he acted distant. Even when his jaw tightened and his eyes went cold for no reason. Even when I caught him staring at me like he was calculating something. I kept telling myself he loved me too. He had to. Why else would he keep me this close?

I haven’t been home in a week. I barely remember my bedroom. I sleep at his place or on some stranger’s couch after parties that blur into each other. Music shaking the walls. Bodies everywhere. The air thick and sweet and wrong.

My phone lights up again.

100+ missed calls.

Mom. Dad. Unknown numbers.

My chest tightens for half a second. Panic. Guilt. Fear.

Then Rafe just takes my phone from my hand.

“It’s fine,” he mutters, not even looking at me.

And I let him.

He threads his fingers through mine and leads me through the packed house. People move aside for him. For us. I feel important walking next to him. Chosen. Claimed.

We reach the long table in the kitchen.

There’s so much of it. Powder. Pills. Bottles. Little plastic bags that glitter under the light like something beautiful.

It should scare me.

It doesn’t.

Because when he looks at me — when he brushes his thumb over my cheek and calls me his girl — the world feels sharper. Louder. Brighter. Like I’ve stepped into a different universe where nothing exists except this moment and his approval.

I know it’s bad.

I know I’m falling.

I can feel it in the way my hands shake when I haven’t had anything. In the way my parents’ voices sound distant and annoying instead of loving. In the way I don’t recognize myself in mirrors anymore.

But love makes everything feel justified.

What don’t you do for love, right?

So when he pulls me closer to the table and whispers, “Trust me,” I nod.

Because losing myself feels better than losing him.

And somewhere deep down, under the numbness, under the thrill, under the high—

I know he’s my downfall.

And I’m walking into it willingly.