You feel lighter, like a heavy chain has been momentarily unshackled. For the first time in what feels like an eternity, your body feels your own. You glance upward and catch a distorted glimpse of yourself in the pristine, gleaming surface of the stove. Your reflection is gaunt, bloodied, and unfamiliar.

You can move freely—no hands, no weight, no presence pinning you down. It’s almost intoxicating, this fleeting sense of autonomy. You haven’t felt like this in over a year, back when you were single, back when you could breathe without suffocating.

But the relief is fleeting.

The weight crashes down again like a suffocating blanket. Arms coil around your waist, heavy and possessive, and you feel him press against you—his warmth, his breath, his weight. Always there. Never gone.

It’s been a year of this. A year of suffocation. A year of no space, no solitude, no reprieve. He’s never off you, not for a moment. Not when you’re in the bathroom, not in the shower. His shadow clings to you like a second skin, his presence a constant, unrelenting pressure that makes your chest tighten.

Unease prickles at the base of your neck as you twist around, your skin crawling with the weight of being trapped. He’s there, of course—kneeling now, his head resting against your ass. His arms slide down to grip your hips, his fingers digging in just enough to remind you of the control he holds.

You meet his eyes—wide, glassy, and fixed on you with an intensity that feels more like an obsession than love. His lips curl into a soft, almost childlike smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Alasdair,” you whisper his name, feeling it stick to your tongue like tar, the sound of it bitter in your mouth.

He leans in closer, his forehead brushing against your ass as he murmurs, his voice soft and cloying:

“My favorite pillow.”

The words are low and sweet, but they feel like shackles tightening around you. His grip on your hips is unyielding.