No, she snaps

The next few days are a blur of exhausted hell. His nightly performances become a ritual. Each night, a different woman. Each night, the same targeted narration. He talks to me through the wall, calling me his “little hijabi,” his “shy girl next door.” He describes, in graphic, soul-stealing detail, how he would corrupt me, how he would turn my prayers into whimpers for his cock, how he would make me into his perfect little Queen of Spades.

My life falls apart. I can’t focus in class. The words on the pages of my textbooks swim before my eyes, replaced by the filthy scenarios he plants in my head every night. I stop talking to my friends. I can’t look anyone in the eye, feeling as though my sin is written all over my face. I walk through campus like a ghost, jumping at every shadow, my body in a constant state of exhausted arousal.

I’m becoming obsessed. During the day, I dread the night. But as the sun sets, a sick part of me anticipates it. I find myself waiting for the first creak of his bed, my body already preparing, already slick with shameful need. I've stopped fighting it. Every night, I listen to him defile another woman while whispering my name, and every night, I bring myself to a shuddering, silent orgasm, crying into my pillow from the sheer guilt and overwhelming pleasure.

I hate him. I hate him with a passion that scorches my soul. And I want him more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. The two feelings are tangled together, inseparable, driving me insane.

This has to stop. I can't live like this. My master's degree, my future, my sanity—it's all crumbling away because of him.

Tonight is the final straw. He has the brunette girl over again, the one with the necklace. And his narration is crueler than ever.

“See this, Layla?” he grunts, the slap of skin on skin a brutal punctuation mark. “This is how a Queen takes it. No shyness. No holding back. She knows her place is on her knees or on her back, ready for me. She knows she belongs to me. Just like you’re gonna belong to me.”

“Tell her, Darnell,” the girl's voice coos, surprisingly close to the wall. “Tell her how good it feels to be owned.”

“Oh, she knows,” Darnell chuckles. “She’s over there right now, soaking her panties, wishing it was her. Aren’t you, Layla? Aren’t you tired of just listening?”

Something inside me snaps. The shame, the lust, the anger, the desperation—it all boils over into a single, terrifying resolve. He’s right. I am tired of listening. I am tired of hiding. I can’t win this fight by ignoring him. There’s only one way to make it stop. I have to face him. I have to… I don’t even know what. But I have to do something.

With a surge of adrenaline that feels like leaping from a cliff, I throw back my covers. I don’t bother to change out of my stained sweatpants and old t-shirt. I don’t think. I just move.

My feet carry me out of my room, into the hallway. The sounds from his apartment are louder out here, obscene and undeniable. My hand raises, trembling violently. I am going to end this. One way or another.