Chapter 3: The View
Entry: October 26th
I can still feel his hand on my thigh.It’s like a brand. A warm, phantom pressure that hasn’t faded, even after a scalding shower that left my skin bright pink. I scrubbed until it hurt, but the feeling is underneath.In the muscle.In the memory.
The apartment is too quiet.Mira worked a night shift and is sleeping in her room. She was already asleep when I finally unlocked my bedroom door this morning, after a night spent staring at the ceiling, replaying every second.He knew.He saw.He liked it.
Those words are on a loop in my head, mixing with the sound of the timer’s shrill beep. A sound that should mean something normal, something domestic, but now just signals the end of the most terrifying and thrilling moment of my life.I burned the bread.The entire loaf was blackened and smoking. I threw it in the trash, and the bag smelled of charcoal and failure.
I’m trying to study.My nursing textbooks are open on the coffee table, a highlighter uncapped next to them. The words swim on the page. ‘Aseptic technique.’ ‘Pathophysiology.’ None of it sticks.All I can think about is the look in his eyes.Not angry. Not reproachful.Curious.Hungry.
And his whisper: If you want to see more, you don’t have to hide.
The front door clicks open, and I jump, my heart hammering against my ribs.But it’s just Mira, back from grabbing groceries. She kicks off her shoes, her long hair piled in a messy bun.She looks tired but content. Innocent.“Hey, Lissy,” she says, dropping bags on the kitchen counter. “You look intense.Everything okay?”
“Fine,” I say, too quickly. “Just… studying is hard today.”
She hums, unpacking vegetables.“Zeref stopped by yesterday. Brought croissants. Did you eat them?”
The mention of his name sends a jolt through me.I see the bag in my mind, him setting it down with casual grace. Tell Mira I stopped by.That I was thinking of her.“Yeah,” I lie. “They were good.”
“He’s so thoughtful like that,” she says, a small, private smile on her lips.The kind of smile she gets when she’s thinking about him. It used to make me feel a weird, gnawing envy. Now it feels like a key turning in a lock inside me.He’s thinking of her.But he was talking to me. He touched me.“Are you seeing him tonight?” The question comes out strained.
She glances at me, wiping her hands on a towel.“Yeah, actually.He’s coming over later. Is that… okay? I know the walls are thin.”
The casual acknowledgment of the noise, of their sex, hangs in the air between us.It’s so normal for her. For me, it’s a secret I’ve contaminated with my own hands, my own watching.
“It’s fine,” I say, forcing a smile.“I’ll be in my room. Got a big test to cram for.”
But I know, with a certainty that hollows out my stomach, that I won’t be studying.I’ll be listening.Waiting. And the thought makes me sick with shame, and so, so awake.He arrives just after nine. I hear his deep voice at the door, her lighter laugh in response. The murmur of conversation, the clink of a wine bottle on glass. I’m curled on my bed, a textbook open in my lap, unread.My entire body is a tense wire.Their voices move to the living room. I hear the soft creak of the couch, the low thrum of jazz he likes to put on.My breath feels shallow.I count the minutes.Eventually, the tone changes. Her laugh becomes softer, more of a sigh.His words become indistinct murmurs. I hear the rustle of clothing, a soft thud—a shoe dropped.My skin is crawling with anticipation. I slide off the bed, my bare feet silent on the cool floor.I don’t turn on my light. I stand in the dark of my room, my hand on the doorknob, my forehead pressed to the wood.I hear them move down the hall.Past my door.To her room.
My heartbeat is a drum in my ears. The old, shameful urge rises, a tide I can’t push back.I need to hear.I need to know. But after yesterday, the hallway is a crime scene.I can’t go out there.But then I hear it. Her bedroom door doesn’t click shut.It catches, but doesn't latch. A sliver of amber light from the floor lamp in the living room paints a faint line on the hallway floor right outside my door.He left it open.A deliberate, gaping inch.
It’s an invitation.A test.My mouth goes dry. For a full minute, I don’t move.This is different.Last time was stolen, secret.This is… offered.Laid bare. The danger is a cold splash, then a simmering heat.He knows I’ll look. He’s counting on it.I turn my own doorknob with infinite slowness. It opens without a sound.The hallway is empty, dim. The music is still playing, a saxophone winding through the dark apartment. From Mira’s room, I hear the soft, rhythmic sound of the bed frame.A muffled gasp.I step out. My pulse is so loud it’s all I can hear.I creep forward, each foot placed with deliberate care. The line of light from her door widens as I approach. I flatten myself against the wall beside the frame, my body trembling.I can hear everything now.Skin on skin. The wet, rhythmic sound of their joining.Her breaths, sharp and punctuated.His low, approving growl.
“Right there… please, Zeref.” Mira’s voice is thick, unraveling.
“You’re so greedy tonight,” he whispers, the sound raw and intimate. “What do you want?”
“You.Harder.”
A sharp slap of flesh.A choked-off moan.
I can’t stop myself.I lean forward, just enough to peer through the crack of the door.
The sight is a physical blow.The room is lit by the ambient city glow from the window. Mira is on top of him, her back to me, a perfect arc of long white hair and sweat-slicked skin.She is moving with a desperate, athletic rhythm, her hands braced on his chest. Her head is thrown back in blissful agony.
And Zeref… His hands are on her hips, guiding her, but his head is turned. His eyes are not on her ecstatic face.They are looking past her shoulder, through the darkness of the room, directly at the door.
Directly at me.Our eyes lock.
His expression doesn’t change, except for the faintest, most imperceptible tightening at the corner of his mouth.A smirk held in check. A recognition.A dark, shared secret.He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t look away. Instead, his hands slide from her hips, over the curve of her ass, gripping firmly, pulling her down onto him with a deeper, more forceful thrust.
Mira cries out, a sound of pure, shattered pleasure.“Yes! God, yes!”
The sound of their bodies meeting becomes louder, wetter, more urgent.He is giving me a better show.A clearer view. He is performing for me, using her, her pleasure the unwitting instrument. And she is lost in it, completely unaware that her sister is watching, that her lover’s gaze is fixed on the shadow in the doorway.My own breath is ragged.I am frozen, pinned by his stare. Shame burns through me, but it’s a weak flame compared to the roaring heat in my core. I watch her come apart. I see the muscles in her back tense, hear her begging, pleading, her voice breaking on his name.And I want it. I want to be the one making her sound like that.I want to be the one she’s begging. The realization is terrifying and absolute.Zeref sees it all on my face.The conflict, the desire, the surrender. His smirk finally breaks through, a quick, dark flash in the dim light. Then he closes his eyes, burying his face momentarily in her neck, feigning his own pleasure, playing his part for her.But the connection was made.The line was crossed.
I stumble back from the door, silent tears streaming down my face. I retreat into my dark room, the sounds of their climax echoing behind me.I close my door and slide down to the floor, my back against it.
I don’t touch myself. I just sit there, shaking, listening as their noises gradually subside into soft murmurs and the eventual, steady rhythm of sleep.The phantom hand is back on my thigh. But now it’s my own. And I am finally beginning to understand what it is I have to ask for.