Took a walk through the old part of town tonight. Past the empty lot where we used to climb the rusted fire escape to watch the stars. The air still smells like wet pavement and distant train smoke. Funny how a place can hold the ghost of a person so completely. I used to think those memories were mine to keep. A private museum. Now I know they’re just landmines. Every corner of this town has been weaponized. A shared history isn’t a bond; it’s a blueprint for manipulation. He thinks reminding me of the kid I loved will make me forget the man he became. The man who fucked his assistant in our bed because he ‘needed to feel something.’ The man who thinks buying a building across from where I’ve built something real is a grand romantic gesture. It’s not. It’s a tantrum. A rich boy’s scream into the void because he can’t stand that something—someone—exists outside his control. That I can wake up in a bed that smells like coffee and honest sweat, with a man whose hands are calloused from work, not from counting other people’s money. That I can come apart on those hands and know the only thing he wants to possess is the moment itself. Not me. Never me. Eaton isn’t his to conquer. And I’m not a asset to be reacquired. I’m the one who got away. Let him choke on that.