It wasn't the kiss that ruined me.
Not really.
It was the way he smiled afterward—like he'd gotten exactly what he wanted.
Like he'd peeled back a layer of me I didn't know existed and now held it in the palm of his hand.
It wasn't smug.
It wasn't cruel.
It was worse.
It was addictive.
Because that smile?
It looked like home.
And hell.
All at once.
---
I tried to stay away after that night.
Avoided the spots I thought he might be.
Switched up my routines.
Blocked and unblocked his name on every social media app I could think of, even though we never followed each other.
But he was everywhere.
Not in person.
In me.
In the way I began expecting a voice like his around corners.
In the way songs I used to love now sounded like him.
In the way I'd reach for my phone at 2 a.m. and stop—hand hovering, knowing I didn't even have a number to dial.
He'd become a habit I never agreed to form.
---
Then came the note.
Slipped into the side pocket of my bag while I wasn't looking. No name. Just a sentence written in handwriting I knew was his.
"Stop pretending you don't want more."
And beneath it, an address.
Midnight.
No explanation.
Just the kind of dare you don't turn down when you've already started losing yourself.
---
I went.
Of course I went.
Dressed in all black, heart pounding like I was walking into a heist and not a boy.
The address led me to the rooftop of an old parking garage.
He was already there—sitting on the hood of a car, cigarette dangling from his fingers, city lights painting him in gold.
"You showed," he said, eyes sliding over me.
"You knew I would," I replied.
"Because you want more?"
I didn't answer.
Didn't need to.
Because I was already walking toward him, one shaky breath at a time.
---
We didn't talk much.
Just sat on the hood, side by side, his shoulder brushing mine.
"Do you always do this?" I asked finally. "Lure girls in, make them lose sleep, steal their thoughts like a thief in the dark?"
He grinned.
That grin.
Like trouble. Like comfort. Like every reason I should run, and every reason I couldn't.
"Only when they taste like storms and try to pretend they're sunlight."
---
That night, he didn't kiss me.
He just watched me.
And I think that ruined me more than any touch ever could.
Because his silence told me everything.
He knew I was his.
Even if I hadn't said it yet.