> "You ever love someone so much it ruins you?"
I ask the mirror. Not because I want an answer, but because it's the only thing that hasn't left me yet.
The satin dress still fits. Ivory white, expensive, stitched by a lie. It hugs my waist like it remembers his hands. His breath. His promises.
I should've burned this thing. Burned the apartment. Burned every goddamn photo.
But instead, I'm here. Wearing it again. Like it might reverse time.
He told me his name was Marco. His eyes said something else.
I was too in love to notice.
Now I know.
He wasn't Marco.
He was Nico.
And I was never his wife. I was a mission.
---
"I loved you."
"You loved the story I sold you."
"Then sell me another lie. One that doesn't end with me bleeding."
---
The ring is still on my finger.
It won't come off.
I tried soap. Lotion. Scissors.
Now it's part of me. A metal promise welded by delusion.
He disappeared three months ago.
No goodbye. No note. No corpse.
Just vanished.
And now I'm in Milan, standing on his soil, waiting like an idiot in a dress no one's clapping for.
---
"You followed me all the way to Italy for closure?"
"No. I followed you because I'm going to kill you."
"You still love me."
"That's the problem."
---
I know he's near.
I can smell him in the rain, in the rusted air. I see him in the flick of every stranger's cigarette. I hear him in my dreams.
Sometimes I wish he'd just shoot me and get it over with.
But knowing Nico?
He'll make me beg for it.
---