Ashray was never the jealous type.
But jealousy is polite compared to obsession.
One night, while Ira slept—hair spread across his pillow, arm limp across his chest—he unlocked her phone.
He knew the pattern. She used the same one to draw hearts on fogged windows.
Inside her Notes app was a locked folder.
Password protected.
He tried dates. Her birthday. The date they met.
Nothing.
Then he typed in his name.
It opened.
There were only three files.
"He's breaking."
"Chapter ideas: what if he found out?"
"What I want to tell him but never will."
He opened the last one.
Her words were raw. Terrifyingly intimate.
"Sometimes I think I do love him. But not in a safe way. In a way that makes me want to test how far he'll go before he cracks me open or walks away. And if he walks, maybe I'll finally understand why I always need to be abandoned to feel real."
He stared at her sleeping face.
He should've been angry. But all he felt… was exposed.