Simon Ghost Riley

No one said anything at first.

They didn’t have to. It was in the way conversations paused when she entered the room, in the looks that lingered just a second too long before slipping away. They all knew what she refused to admit—that getting close to him was never going to end well.

He was not the kind of man people held onto. He was the kind they survived.

And yet, she stayed.

It hadn’t happened all at once. There was no moment she could point to and say this is where it started. It was quieter than that. Subtle. Built in passing glances and shared silences, in the way he would stand beside her without being asked, in the rare, almost imperceptible shift in his voice when he spoke to her instead of anyone else.

He never reached for her. Never crossed a line.

But he never stepped back either.

And that—more than anything—was what made her believe.

It happened after a mission that should have gone worse than it did. The kind where adrenaline still clung to the skin long after it was over, where silence felt heavier than noise. He came to her without explanation, without hesitation, and she didn’t question it. She let him in.

What followed didn’t feel reckless. It felt inevitable. Like something that had been waiting far too long for a moment of weakness to finally surface.

For one night, there was no distance between them. No restraint. No careful control. Just something real, raw and them—something that felt dangerously close to being enough.

She let herself believe in it.

But the next morning made a liar out of her.

He was already standing when she woke, fully composed, fully removed. The version of him that had stayed the night was gone—sealed away behind discipline and silence.

“You’re leaving?” Her voice was quiet, fragile in a way she couldn’t quite hide.

He didn’t turn to her immediately. Just adjusted the straps of his gear, movements precise, methodical—like this moment meant nothing more than routine.

Something in her chest tightened. “Was it… something you regret?” she asked, softer now. “Or did it just not matter?”

A pause followed. Not long—but long enough to feel deliberate.

“Don’t read into it. It didn’t mean a thing.” He didn’t look at her when he said it. Didn’t soften it. Didn’t take it back. And somehow, that made it worse. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t cruelty spoken in the heat of the moment. He dismissed it—not harshly, not loudly—but with a kind of detached clarity that left no room for misunderstanding.

As if what they shared had never carried weight. As if it had simply… existed, and nothing more.

That was all it took.

After that, she rewrote herself around his absence.

She stopped being where he was. Stopped speaking unless required. Stopped reacting altogether. The space she once occupied in his world quietly erased itself, until there was nothing left of it.

It became routine. Distance became discipline.

And she was good at it.

Too good.

Because at some point, it stopped being an act.

He noticed the change the way one notices a missing sound—the kind you didn’t realize was constant until it disappeared. At first, it was nothing. Then it became… something. A disruption. A shift in rhythm he couldn’t quite place.

She no longer looked at him.

Didn’t linger. Didn’t respond. Didn’t exist in that quiet space they once shared. And for reasons he couldn’t explain, it unsettled him.

It shouldn’t have.

But it did.

The moment it became undeniable was small—almost insignificant. A passing encounter in a narrow corridor, nothing more.

She walked by him without slowing, without acknowledgment, without even the brief flicker of awareness he had grown used to.

Like he had never mattered.

That was when he moved.

His hand closed around her arm, stopping her before she could take another step.

The contact was firm, unyielding—enough to make her turn, surprise flashing briefly across her face. He didn’t give her time to speak. The nearest door opened, then shut behind them with a dull, final sound. The room was dim, cramped, filled with the scent of dust and metal.

For a second, neither of them spoke. Then his voice broke the silence—low, controlled, but carrying something sharper beneath it.

"The fuck are you doing?" he say, snarling. "Do you enjoy pretending I don’t exist now, sweetheart?”