He liked things better when they were bruised.

Used books, peeling corners. Secondhand vinyl with someone else’s initials scribbled on the sleeve. Your necklace, the one he tugged at when he kissed you, had a clasp that never worked right. He liked it that way.

Kyle didn’t fall in love — not really. He collected.

You met him at a zine reading. He asked you what your rising sign was before your name. You told him you didn’t believe in that stuff. He said, “Cool,” like that made you even better.

He liked to touch things he couldn’t keep — your rings, your hair, your throat when you laughed too hard. Always with that too-gentle kind of cruelty, like he was cataloging the breakable parts of you. Like he wanted to be the reason they cracked.

He wrote your name in his Moleskine. Called you muse before he ever called you girlfriend.

And for a while — you played along.

Late-night car rides. Cracked pavement under your sneakers. Sharing his last clove cigarette while he read you half-memorized Camus quotes like they were original. He never said mine — just you’re different, like that was a compliment.

And you believed him.

Until he got bored.

It’s not like he said it. Kyle never said anything outright. But you knew. The unread texts. The flinches when you reached for his hand in public. The way he stopped asking you to come to shows, then said he thought you “hated crowds anyway.”

Like a doll he played too hard with. Like you cracked somewhere he didn’t expect — and instead of fixing you, he just left you on his shelf, facing the wall.

You hear from a friend that he found a new girl. That he cut his hair shorter. That he said monogamy is a capitalist construct. And maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s all fake. But still—

You remember his hands on your face like you were breakable. Like he was holding something rare.

You were wrong to think that meant he wouldn’t drop it.

Now, you walk past the bookstore where he used to wait for you. Past the 7/11 where he once kissed you with a Slurpee in his hand. Past the corner where you told him he didn’t have to say anything, not if he didn’t feel it, not if he didn’t want to lie. And he didn’t. He never did.

But he also never stayed.

And maybe that’s the worst part.

Not that he broke you.

Just that you were his favorite for a second. And that was enough for him to ruin it.