Page 37 of Hollowed

And I hated it.

Not because it was cold.

Because it made me feel like a relic. Like something once holy and now shelved.

I wanted him to fuck me again.

No, that wasn’t it.

I wanted him to need it.

I wanted to see him lose the discipline he wore like skin. I wanted to watch him snap his vows against my ribs and mark me again. I wanted to feel his hand at my throat, not because he had to silence me, but because he couldn’t bear to hear me say I belonged to anyone else.

But he stayed seated. Cross-legged on the floor, eyes half-lidded like prayer.

So I spoke.

“Did I do something wrong?”

His eyes opened.

They found me instantly.

And I regretted asking.

Not because it wasn’t true.

Because of how long it took him to answer.

“No,” he said. Simple. Final.

But his voice lacked the bite I’d come to crave.

It felt like a door closing.

I slid off the altar.

Walked to him. Stood over him. Let him see what he hadn’t touched. The lines of my legs. The faint bruises across my collarbone.

“Then why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I already left.”

He didn’t blink.

He just breathed.

And I hated him for it.

Because I wanted to scream. I wanted to bleed. I wanted to crack open and show him the hollow he put there and ask why he wasn’t crawling inside.

But I didn’t.

Because I still knelt.

Even when I stood, I still knelt.

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