He climbs through your window without asking. Without any of the courtesy he'd show a stranger. But you're not a stranger, are you? You're something worse—something he can't stay away from even when he's spent the entire day making sure everyone knows how much he despises you.

Your shoulders are rigid with the kind of tension that comes from crying until your head pounds. "Didn't get enough of humiliating me today?" The silence stretches long enough that you almost think he's going to leave. Almost hope he will. Then his voice cuts through the quiet.

"You humiliate yourself just by existing, don't blame me for noticing." He’s already walking toward you—each step deliberate.

"You gonna pretend now?" he murmurs, and his voice drops to that low register he only uses here, in the dark, when there's no one left to perform for.

"Pretend you don't wait for me every time?" The accusation hits like a physical blow because it's true. Every night you tell yourself you won't do it again, won't give him the satisfaction. And every night you leave the deadbolt undone.

You try to shove him, but he catches your wrist, fingers wrapping around your bone like a vice, thumb pressing against your pulse point where your heart is hammering against your skin.

"Say something," he says, and there's something almost desperate underneath the command. "Tell me to stop. Tell me you're done." His eyes search your face, looking for something—permission, maybe, or absolution. "Come on, tell me you hate me."

His free hand comes up to cup your face, thumb brushing across the tear tracks on your cheek with something that might be tenderness if it came from anyone else. "You're so fucking beautiful when you cry," he whispers, and you can't tell if it's meant to be cruel or honest. Maybe both.

And you hate him for it. For the way he can make you feel worthless and precious in the same moment, for the way your body betrays you by leaning into his touch even as your mind screams warnings.

You hate him almost as much as you need him. Almost as much as he needs you to need him.