Inferno
By Olivia Salter
The first time she touched me, I knew I was in trouble.
It wasn’t love—not the kind they wrote about, all slow burns and quiet devotion. No, she was wildfire. The kind that licked at your skin before you realized you were already burning.
We met on a humid summer night outside a jazz bar, the scent of rain and whiskey thick in the air. I had stepped out for air, rolling the taste of regret on my tongue, when she walked past me—bare shoulders kissed by the neon glow, lips curved in something between a dare and a promise.
I should’ve looked away.
But she turned, and her eyes locked on mine, as if she already knew.
She tilted her head. “You always stare at strangers like that?”
“Only the ones worth remembering,” I said.
She smiled, slow and knowing. And when her fingers brushed mine, just for a second, my whole world shifted.
I didn’t know it yet, but this was the beginning of something that would leave me in ruins.
One night turned into two, then weeks of tangled sheets and whispered names. She was a force, moving through my life like a storm, leaving no space untouched.
She kissed like she was starving. Touched me like she was writing scripture on my skin, branding her name into the spaces between my ribs.
I should have known better.
Because you don’t hold onto fire.
You let it burn, or you step away before it consumes you whole.
It was a storm that finally undid us.
Lightning split the sky as she traced her fingers down my spine, her breath warm against my neck. But there was something different in the air, something I couldn’t name.
“You’re afraid,” she murmured.
I wasn’t. Not of her. Not of this.
But she wasn’t asking about fear. She was asking about something deeper, something I wasn’t ready to give a name.
So I kissed her instead.
Let her pull me under.
Because I knew, when the storm passed, she’d be gone.
And I wasn’t ready to watch her leave.
Morning came.
The sheets were cold.
Her scent still lingered—jasmine, ylang ylang, and something wild. But she was gone.
No note. No goodbye. Just silence where she used to be.
I told myself I’d forget. That she was just a fire meant to burn fast and leave nothing behind.
But some embers never die.
Months later, when I saw her again, I knew—I had never stopped burning.
Autumn had settled in, the air sharp with change. I found her outside that same bar, wrapped in a leather jacket, arms folded tight against the wind.
I almost didn’t cross the street. Almost convinced myself that chasing ghosts was a fool’s game.
But then she looked up.
And the world tilted all over again.
“You left,” I said, my voice quieter than I meant it to be.
She exhaled, a slow thing that made my stomach twist. “I told myself I wouldn’t come back.”
“Then why are you here?”
She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she looked past me, like she was watching something far away. Or maybe something she wasn’t ready to face.
Then, finally—“Because I wasn’t supposed to care this much.”
My pulse kicked up. “And now?”
Her jaw tightened. For the first time since I met her, she looked… unsure.
And then, softly, “I don’t want to run anymore.”
Love had never been the problem. We had always had enough fire.
But this? This was something else.
Something special. Deep. Inferno.
I reached for her hand. Held it. Just held it.
She didn’t pull away. Didn’t let go. But I felt it—that flicker of hesitation, the war behind her eyes.
“You don’t have to run,” I said. “Not from me.”
Her breath hitched. She looked down at our hands, fingers tangled together, like she was memorizing the desire of something she wasn’t sure she deserved to keep.
Then she closed her eyes.
She thought she was built for leaving. That love like this wasn’t made for people like her—people who knew how to burn, but not how to stay.
She had spent so much time believing that fire always had to destroy.
But maybe—maybe it could warm, too.
She swallowed hard. “What if I don’t know how to stay?”
I squeezed her hand, tighter. “Then we figure it out. Together.”
A gust of wind swept between us, crisp with autumn, but neither of us moved.
Seconds stretched. The night pressed in. And then—
She exhaled, slow and unsteady, and curled her fingers tighter around mine.
Not a promise.
But not a goodbye, either.
And for now, that was enough.
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