Riven

I was never supposed to call him. I was supposed to call my brother. I was supposed to keep my voice steady, tell him where I was, and wait for him to pick me up before I completely fell apart. But my hands were shaking. My eyes were blurry. My heart was somewhere on the wet pavement outside the club, right where my ex left it. So I pressed the wrong name. His name. The boy I hated. The boy who hated me back — or at least, that was what I always told myself. He was arrogant, cold, dangerous in the quietest way. The kind of guy who didn’t need to raise his voice to make a room tense. The kind who watched too closely and noticed too much. And that night, he noticed I was crying. I tried to lie. I tried to hang up. I tried to pretend I was fine. But he heard everything I didn’t say. And when he asked where I was, it didn’t sound like a question. It sounded like a warning.