Strangers Again

"After a series of dates that feel disarmingly intimate, Grace finds herself reduced to yet another sample in someone’s dating buffet. But connection comes with cost. As her illusions crumble, she reflects on how modern intimacy can leave wounds that don’t bleed, but fester. A story about disillusionment, power reclaimed, and the aching strangeness of being briefly known...and quickly discarded."

She makes her turmeric latte in a soup bowl...the oversized one that doubles as comfort food. It’s the same ritual every morning now.... rituals for a girl who used to dream loudly. The birds aren’t even up yet, but she is. Not awake, just… present. Now, with Something warm in her hands while the cold in her chest figures out how to thaw.

The mirror keeps a silent question...Have we met before?

You see the mirrors reflection does not blink as she walks past it. Which is good, because she does not recognize the woman inside

It’s not that they’re strangers now. That’s just the consequence of time.

The wound lies in being briefly known, touched, then discarded. Not like something unwanted. Like something used.

Because Terran did what the others did: held something sacred in her and treated it like a snack sample. A maybe. A moment. A muse in passing.

The lights were pretty. The first thing her brain did was spazz out like a child on Christmas morning. Fairy lights were strung across the tallest trees in the park on the hill. Twinkling in a way that made her believe, just for a second, that magic might still exist.

He’d asked her to walk with him. Talked it up like romance, about cuddling beneath the lights. And when it finally happened, when his arms wrapped around her waist, and her eyes stayed fixed on the dancing flames ahead...it was beautiful. Perfect, even.

But let’s not get comfortable. For wolves circle, dressed as sheep.

Five Dates and a Ghost.

Date One: Ten Pin Bowling. It was awkward for all of ten minutes. He had that safe smile. That warm-kindness energy. She lost the game, but it was never about the points, it was about how her cheeks hurt from laughing.

Date Two: Arcades and Virtual Reality.

She panicked with the headset on. Whipped it off like it had betrayed her senses. He just stood there smiling like he got it. She tried again. And again. Every time, when fear wanted to take over, there was his voice telling her, “I’ve got you! You are safe.” And somehow, she felt it.

Date Three: The Walk and the Wounds.

They cuddled under an open sky and talked about everything and nothing. Childhood scars. His relationship with an ex he still spoke to constantly....almost like she was present on every date. “She just wants to know,” he’d say casually. It was strange. Intimate in the wrong way. But still, she stayed.

Date Four: Movies. Reclining seats. Easy warmth. They lay in each other’s company like time wasn’t real. He was affectionate. She let herself imagine the next few months.

Date Five: The Park. The lights. The hands around her. The moment where she let herself believe she’d finally been chosen.

But, ones expectations is not always another’s reality.

His house was in shambles. He was renovating... but everywhere renovated, but the bed.

She half-laughed when he told her to sit. Where else was she supposed to go?

He coaxed her gently to take off her shoes. She did. It was late. She was tired. He tried to snuggle more intimately. So, She pulled away.

He listened. Sort of. Rolled over. They went to sleep. Or, she pretended to.

Her body was wet, not from desire, but some primal reaction...the curse of human biology, it didn’t know better. She removed her pants quietly to dry herself. Not seductively. Not suggestively. Just silently, shamefully. Seeking a dry comfort.

She couldn’t sleep. She lay awake in a bed that wasn’t hers, in a space that already felt like a lie. She brushed her fingers along his back, hoping for conversation. Company. A little less lonely in strange surroundings.

He sprang up like he’d been waiting. The moment turned. Fast.

He growled, like a beast. Literally, growled. Bit her neck as if to taste more than just her flesh. He bound her wrists and pulled her under him.

She said no.

But,

He didn’t stop.

There was a struggle, real, not imagined. Legs tightly closed, a shuffle, attempts to leave, But then came that all-too-familiar feeling. The one where your body says: “Surrender. That’s the safest route.”

So, she did.

Compliance is not consent. But try explaining that to the voices in your head at 3 a.m.

After, he wanted more. She said no again. So he changed tactics.

He didn’t touch her like a person. He consumed her like a conquest.

And when he was done,

She left, quietly. There was nothing to yell about when you weren’t sure what happened at all.

She thought she knew him. She thought she knew herself. But by this end, both are strangers again.

It was the PING of a notification, that confirmed it.

It’s not that women want to play detective. It’s that technology makes it impossible not to. The apps hand you the evidence...little pings that say, “Hey, he’s moved on already.”

And that’s exactly what happened.

Barely an hour after he took too much from her, there he was....active again. Swiping. Shopping. Looking for the next sample to toss into his cart.

Maybe this is just how people date now. But when did it become normal to treat connection like a vending machine? When did we all agree that ghosting, breadcrumbing, and emotional theft were just part of the game?

She didn’t feel bitter. She felt alien. Like she was the only one still trying to be human in a world that had automated intimacy.

The Morning Message

6:04 a.m. The sun began to rise like it didn’t give a damn.

“Hey great meeting you, but I don’t think we’re a match. All the best.”

And just like that, he was gone and she blocked.

Gone like the connection. Gone like the illusion. Gone like the piece he carved out and carried without permission.

The Gift

She remembered his stories. The vulnerability. The childhood trauma. The way he talked about being punished with household tools. The kind of specific you don’t forget.

He’d said once, “Everyone’s a teacher. I’m always the student.”

She could feel that level of understanding.

So she gave him a lesson.

A hardware store was open early. She picked the exact tools he named in his trauma confessions. Boxed them neatly. Wrote a note.

Since you’re so fascinated by anatomy, I thought you’d appreciate a tool that leaves a lasting impression.

Education never ends.

Consider this a keepsake.

And next time, choose your teachers and lessons more wisely.

She posted it with no fanfare. No vengeance high. No guilt either.

Just stillness.

And Then Came the Mirror

No thunder clapped. No closure came.

Just her and a lingering question, Do I know you?....

The girl in the mirror who used to trust strangers with ease.who use to know herself....now a wonder if they had even met.

“Each piece taken by hands that never earned it.

Each bite of her soul chewed and forgotten.

And now left to be a broth...thin, barely seasoned, offered up to men

Who don’t know the taste of worth.”

The funny thing is, she never wanted war. She wanted to be held like a secret and kept like a promise.

Instead, she got sampled. Scrolled. Consumed. Then filed under not worth it.

It’s not that she and Terran are strangers now. That was always inevitable....

It’s that even her reflection has joined them.

As she stares at her reflection, her eyes hollow.

Have we met? She whispered. The mirror does not answer, it never does.

Should another stranger wander in,

Let him be honest about his exit, Grace has no more softness left , For men who treat her like a stopover, On the way to someone else.