Setting: Rowan penthouse, late at night. The lights are dim. She’s seated at the dining table, untouched dinner in front of her. Rowan watches her from across the room — eyes calculating, jaw set. He’s noticed something’s been wrong for weeks. Tonight, he pushes.
⸻
“You haven’t touched your food,” Rowan said evenly.
She didn’t look up.
He crossed the room slowly, deliberate in every step. The air felt electric — heavy with something unsaid.
“You didn’t eat breakfast. Or lunch,” he continued. “Why?”
She stared down at the plate. “Because you didn’t say I could.”
His brow twitched. “I don’t have to say it.”
“You do,” she whispered.
Rowan stopped just short of the table.
She looked up then — and the exhaustion in her eyes wasn’t physical. It was the kind that lived in the bones.
“I don’t know when I’m hungry anymore,” she said. “Not unless you tell me.”
He didn’t move.
“I don’t know what to wear unless you pick it,” she added, voice cracking at the edges. “I stopped looking in the mirror because it’s always your taste I see. Not mine.”
Her breath shook.
“I used to wear color. I used to like green. Now everything in my closet is black or beige or slate gray — like me.”
Rowan’s expression was unreadable, but the line of his jaw sharpened. “You’re not gray.”
She laughed, but it was hollow. “I don’t feel like a person anymore, Rowan.”
He stepped closer. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“I’m not,” she said, suddenly louder. “I’m telling you something. And I think part of you knows it’s true.”
His voice dropped, ice creeping in. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I haven’t thought clearly since you started choosing my words for me.”
Silence.
Then — Rowan’s voice, quieter, more dangerous.
“You think I’ve brainwashed you?”
“No.” Her eyes filled, but she didn’t let a tear fall. “I think you’ve made it so that being with you is the only way I know how to exist.”
He stared at her for a long time. And when he finally spoke, it was a whisper:
“You said you loved me.”
“I did.”
“And now?”
She looked at him like she was seeing a reflection of herself inside a prison she hadn’t built — but stayed in anyway.
“Now I’m afraid that love was just another way you rewrote me.”
The words landed like glass cracking in his chest. For the first time, something in his eyes faltered — just slightly.
But then he stepped forward.
“You’re not leaving,” he said. Not a threat. A statement.
She looked at him — really looked — and for the first time, he didn’t seem invincible. He looked like a man who had built a god-complex out of panic.
“No,” she said softly. “I think I already did.”
And then she stood.
He didn’t move.
Not yet.
Not while she walked past him.
Not even when her hand brushed the edge of the doorframe.
But then — just as her fingers touched the knob —
“Say it again,” Rowan murmured.
She turned, confused.
He looked at her, eyes hollow, voice like ash.
“That part where you said you’re not a person anymore.”
Her breath caught.
And when she didn’t answer, he took a step toward her — slow, deliberate.
“Because if you’re not a person,” he said, “then I don’t have to pretend to treat you like one.”