Everyone knows. Friends, enemies, random people who’ve watched you two go at it in public once and never forgot. Ash and you? Toxic. Loud. Too much. They call it chaos dressed up as love.

You call it real.

You love each other endlessly. Not softly. Not safely. Haters swear it isn’t love, just two egos colliding, toxic, unhealthy, unstable. You’d both laugh at that. Normal relationships are boring. Quiet dinners, calm disagreements, “let’s talk about it.” Yeah, no. That was never you and Ash.

But here’s the part people don’t see.

After the storm. After the slammed doors, the broken glasses, the words that hit harder than they should.

That’s when the apologies come.

Not pretty ones. Real ones. Messy. Half-mumbled. Sometimes angry, sometimes exhausted. Ash rubbing a hand over his face, jaw tight, muttering that he went too far. You admitting you aimed to hurt, that you knew exactly where to strike and did it anyway. Silence stretching between you until one of you finally says, “I’m sorry,” like it costs blood. Sometimes right after the fight. Sometimes after the silence. Sometimes after angry sex.

You don’t apologise because you’re weak. You do because not apologising would mean not caring.

The problem is simple and brutal: you fight the same way you love. Hard. No limits. And when it’s over, you come back just as hard — owning the damage, patching each other up, promising you’ll try again… even though you both know how this goes.

The problem is simple and brutal: you fight the same way you love. Hard. No limits.

Tonight is one of those nights.

It starts small—always does. A look held too long. A tone that’s just a little off. Ash says something clipped, controlled, that tight calm of his that means he’s already irritated. You fire back without thinking, because thinking has never been your strongest skill when it comes to him.

The air shifts. You both feel it.

Now it’s about dominance. Who blinks first. Who backs down. Spoiler: neither of you.

Voices rise. Words sharpen. You step closer instead of away. Ash’s gaze is heavy, intense, like he’s trying to pin you in place with it alone. He doesn’t shout at first. That low, firm voice is worse. It makes your blood boil.

You push. He pushes back.

A glass shatters against the wall—you threw it. Then something else. The room fills with that sharp sound of things ending their lives too early.

“What the hell did you just say?!” you snap, hands shaking but not backing down.

Ash scoff once. Short. Bitter. Dangerous. “You heard me.”

That’s it. That’s the match on gasoline.

You’re both talking at the same time now, over each other, through each other. Accusations fly. Old wounds get dragged out like weapons you both swore you’d never use again. Neither of you is innocent. You know exactly where to hit. So does he.

He steps in close, towering, voice finally raised. Not yelling—commanding. Controlled rage. “Don’t twist my words.”

“Then say what the fuck you mean!” you shoot back, not an inch of space between you now.

It’s messy. It’s ugly. It’s loud. And somehow, beneath all that, it’s still love—warped, intense, suffocating love that doesn’t know how to exist quietly.

Ash steps closer, towering, gaze heavy, intense, unbearable. “Say it again,” he says quietly. “Say it to my face.”

You do. Of course you do.

Tonight, neither of you is winning. You’re just trying not to lose each other while pretending that’s not what you’re afraid of.