The Things I Shouldn’t Want

I met him in a café, a place where lonely people pretend to be busy. He was reading, wearing glasses he didn’t need, with fingers that moved over the pages like they had known paper for years.
He didn’t notice me. But that was alright—I noticed him.

Older, calm, with the kind of presence that fills a room without trying. A man who looked like he had done things. Lived. Broken hearts without meaning to.
I knew from the first moment that I wanted him. And when I want something, I always get it.

He was polite when I spoke to him, but distant. Amused, even.

I could tell he thought I was just another young woman trying to make herself interesting. I could have left it there. Could have taken the hint and walked away like a normal person.

But I don’t do normal.

I started going to the café every evening. I changed my seat so he would have to see me, so he would notice the way I drank my coffee, the way I ran my fingers along the rim of my cup. I laughed louder. I let my hair fall a certain way.

And then one evening, he looked at me differently.

He said, “You’re persistent.”
I said, “You’re observant.”

And just like that, I had him.

Men like him always think they’re the ones in control. That’s what makes them so easy to manipulate. They confuse experience with immunity.

He told me I was too young.
I told him he was too old.

And when I kissed him, he let me.
I didn’t care that he had a past, that there were other women before me. That was expected. What mattered was making sure there would be no one after me.

I watched him sleep.

His breathing was steady, like he wasn’t afraid of anything. Like he didn’t know he should be.

I traced the lines on his face, thinking about the years that had made him.
Would he still be beautiful when he was gone?

Would he still belong to me if no one else could have him?

He tried to end it.
Of course he did.

They always do, once they realize they’ve let something dangerous too close.

“This isn’t healthy,” he said. “You need to let go.”
I smiled.

“You think I don’t know that?”
He sighed, rubbing his face like he was exhausted.

“I care about you.”

I laughed at that. Not because it wasn’t true, but because it didn’t matter. Care is weak. Care isn’t enough.

I wanted him to need me the way I needed him. To wake up gasping, feeling the absence of me like a missing limb.
But he didn’t.
He was trying to leave.

I watched him from across the room, silent. I had imagined this moment a hundred times, the way it would go. I had prepared for it, the same way someone prepares for the worst day of their life.

He sighed, tired, as if he had already won.
“It’s over.”

I tilted my head. “You think so?”
And then, before he could answer, before he could try to explain why it had to end, I reached into my bag and pulled out the knife.

It was small, unassuming. Sharp enough to cut through fruit, through flesh. He blinked at it, confused for half a second. Then realization hit, and he opened his mouth to say something—maybe my name, maybe some pathetic plea.

But I didn’t wait.

The first stab was wild, desperate. The blade buried itself in his stomach, and his breath hitched, a soft, broken gasp as if I had merely startled him. His hands went to the wound instinctively, but I was already pulling the knife out, already driving it in again.

This time, I felt it tear through muscle, slide between ribs. His body arched, a strangled sound escaping his throat as his blood—hot, thick—spilled over my hands.
I twisted the blade, just to feel it. Just to make sure he understood.

His knees buckled, and I followed him down, pressing my forehead to his as his weight slumped against me.
His mouth opened, blood bubbling at the corners, choking him before he could say whatever final words he thought would matter. His fingers twitched at my arm, weak, desperate.

I plunged the knife into his chest, hard, feeling the resistance of bone before it gave way. His body spasmed, a horrible, shuddering tremor before he fell still.
I held him.

I listened to the last, broken breath leave his lips.
And then I sat there, in the pool of warmth that used to be inside him, tracing the lines on his face.
He was mine now.
Completely.
Forever.

Blood dries fast. That’s something they never tell you. It starts off warm, almost comforting, then thickens, darkens, stiffens like regret. Like truth.

They will call me insane. A monster. A woman scorned. But love—real love—is not soft, not kind. It does not wear the gentle face they paint it with in books and films. Love is sharp. Love is hunger. Love is knowing that someone’s existence is so intertwined with yours that the idea of them walking away feels like a dismemberment.
They say women suffer more in love, that we are the ones who break, who weep, who swallow the loss and keep moving. But those who say that have never known a woman willing to go the extra mile.
We are taught from childhood that pain is our inheritance. We are conditioned to endure, to nurture, to give. And when we are denied the love we crave, we do not simply walk away. We devour.

Some women cry. Others burn the world down.

I was never the kind to cry.
Obsession is nothing but devotion stripped of its grace. And rage? Rage is simply love denied. Only those who have loved deeply, who have tasted the ache of wanting something so wholly that it consumes them, understand that suffering is not something to be avoided. It is proof that we are alive.
And if pain is the cost of love, then let it cut. Let it drown. Let it remake me into something sharper, something truer.
I have loved. I have suffered. I have taken what was mine.
And I do not regret it.