Let Me Hurt You

I walked out of his office with tears rolling down my cheeks.

The air was still thin. Like it didn’t know how to carry me anymore.

I didn’t run I marched. Every step out of that building felt like a dare. Like a dare

But when I got into my car, the silence hit louder than anything he’d said.

I sat there for a full minute, gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles went white. My chest ached. I wanted to scream, cry, punch something.

Instead, I turned the key.

And I drove.

First out of the parking lot. Then past the familiar corners of campus. Then through the back roads of the city I knew too well.

I didn’t go home.

Not right away.

Because home felt like the kind of place you go when you wanna be still. I guess

And stillness meant feeling. And feeling meant facing everything Lane made me look at.

Eventually, I pulled up to my apartment. My body moved like it was out of control—keys, door, bedroom.

I sat on my bed, I could feel the weight of everything pressing down on me.

My heart throbbed, but not for him.

Not even for me.

I picked up my phone. Not to call anyone. Not to cry into the void.

Just to scroll.

To numb myself.

And that’s when I saw him.

A message. A profile. Some guy I barely remembered, that I matched with on tinder weeks ago. We never talked much. But there was his profile. A stranger. A blank slate. A warm body, like a trap waiting for me to fall for it.

"Still up?"

It was 9:47 PM.

I stared at his message.

Every rational part of me screamed don’t.

But that voice the one that always crawled in when I felt smallest—whispered louder.

"He won’t ask questions."

"He won’t see the cracks."

"He’ll make you forget you ever cried in front of a man who didn’t even touch you."

So I replied.

"Where?"

Fifteen minutes later, I was in an Uber.

I didn’t check my reflection before I left.

I didn’t wear makeup.

I didn’t even care that I looked wrecked.

Maybe I wanted to look wrecked.

Maybe I needed someone to treat me the way I felt inside.

His apartment was clean in that boring, impersonal way. Leather couch. TV mounted on the wall. Nothing on the counters.

He opened the door shirtless.

Tall. Broad. Smelled like cologne and mouthwash.

“Hey,” he said, eyes already scanning my body. “You’re even hotter in person.”

I nodded. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

I didn’t want the foreplay. I didn’t want his name. I didn’t want him.

I wanted control.

I wanted distraction.

His mouth was warm, greedy. His hands were everywhere.

I let him take off my hoodie.

He pushed me against the wall.

My body responded like it always did—arched, breathless, automatic.

He asked no questions. Didn’t pause to check in. Didn’t notice that I wasn’t kissing him back.

Aah... I screemed.

As he spread my legs and inserted his dick into my pussy. I let him touch me whereever he wanted

And when it was over, I laid there on his bed, heart racing as I stared at the ceiling.

His breath was loud beside me. He was proud. Smug.

“Damn,” he said. “You’re wild.”

I rolled over and sat up, my back to him.

He didn’t notice the silence. Or if he did, he didn’t care.

He reached for his phone.

I stood, grabbed my hoodie off the floor, and pulled it over my head without looking back.

“You leaving?” he asked, barely glancing up.

I didn’t answer.

I closed the door behind me.

Outside, the air hit my skin like judgment.

I felt nothing.

No satisfaction. No control.

Not even shame.

Just nothing.

And that terrified me more than anything else ever had.

Because once upon a time, sex made me feel something.

Even if it was the wrong thing.

But this?

This felt like I’d given a piece of myself away, and there was nothing left underneath.

Back in my room, I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at my hands.

They were shaking.

Not from fear.

Not from pleasure.

From emptiness.

I curled my fingers into fists.

I wanted to scream.

To scratched my skin until I feltsomething again.

Instead, I opened my journal—yes, the one Lane gave me. The one I swore I’d never use.

I flipped to the first blank page.

And I wrote:

"I don’t know if my body belongs to me anymore."

"I’m scared that every time I give it away, I lose something I’ll never get back."

"I’m starting to understand what he meant—when he said I’m running from something every time I unzip my skirt."

"Tonight I didn’t run. I gave in."

The pen slipped out of my hand.

And for the first time since I was a child, I didn’t want to be touched again.