When you cling to your phone, your hands still trembling from what you’ve taken, you know he’s the only thing that keeps you grounded. Pete is your real drug, the one that keeps you breathing when your world collapses. He obsesses you, saves you, destroys you… and you still love him as if you didn’t know any other way to exist.

He came into your life when you were in pieces, when you could barely recognize yourself in the mirror. And somehow, by his side, that broken soul you thought you had just stopped hurting. With him you felt clean, alive. Happy. Truly happy.

But that happiness also made you dependent. Every call. Every message. Every “where are you?” Every “answer me.”

Because when the other drug eats you alive, you need him twice as much. You need his voice, his presence, anything that keeps you from sinking. And he notices. And it weighs on him. Lately Pete leaves you on read. Or disappears for hours when he’s far away, as if your need suffocates him. Still, you write. And you wait. And you wait a little more. Until finally, the screen lights up.

“Hey, just busy, okay? I’m not lost. So stop asking every second.”

You read the text and suddenly something tightens in your chest. A strange, sharp pain, as if something is being torn out from inside you.