Page 43 of Taken Online

A lot more than this.

I shouldn't let him lie to me with this pretty words.

But fuck…what's the harm?

Right?

Jesus, I really was stupid.

Epilogue

ASHER

We’vebeendatingforsix months.

If you can call it that.

I’m not sure what to call it, really. “Dating” feels like something teenagers do. Too normal, too tidy for whatever this is. There’s no label that fits us without lying a little. But he’s in my bed more nights than not. I wear his shirts, even when they hang too loose on me. He makes me breakfast I didn’t ask for. I yell at him. He buys me flowers like that somehow makes it even. We fuck. We fight. We don’t go to therapy. We pretend we’re okay.

Maybe that’s love.Maybe it’s something else.

Blake—Kaleb—whatever name he’s wearing that day, still watches me when he thinks I’m not looking. Not through cameras anymore. At least, I think not. But with his eyes. Always with his eyes. Calculating. Possessive. Quietly obsessed.

Sometimes it turns me on. Sometimes it makes my skin itch. Usually it’s both.

He never really apologized. Not in the way a normal person would. No real remorse. No explanation. Just:

“I couldn’t help it. You were mine the second I saw you.”

And somehow that was enough. Somehow I stayed.

I tried to leave once. Packed a bag. Slammed the door like I meant it. Told myself it was over. He showed up at my place at two in the morning, barefoot, drenched from the rain, holding the hoodie I left at his place like it was a child’s toy he couldn’t bear to lose.

He didn’t say sorry.

He said, “Don’t do that again.”

I didn’t.

The fake boyfriend thing? That lie lasted all of one fight. I shouted it at him during an argument, just to feel like I still had a weapon to swing. Just to see if he’d finally flinch. He didn’t.

He dragged me into his lap, held my wrists down, and murmured against my throat, “That’s cute. You needed a story to make me jealous. You could’ve just said you wanted me to be rougher.”

I bit him.

He liked it.

We’ve never fixed what broke between us. Never tried, really. It’s easier to let it rot quietly in the corner of the room. We walk around it. Step over the broken pieces like they’re part of the furniture now. We find new ways to hurt and heal each other. It’s a rhythm. Familiar. Predictable.

And I think that’s what makes it real. Honest. We don’t lie about who we are anymore. We just stopped pretending we’re trying to be better.

That’s the most stable thing we’ve got.

***

He’s watching me from across the kitchen. I can feel it, even before I look up from my phone. He’s leaning against the counter like he’s casual, but I know better. His jaw tightens when I laugh at a text. His fingers twitch where they hold the towel, like he needs to be gripping something harder.

“You gonna tell me who that is?” he asks. Calm. Too calm.

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