"I’m sorry, Steve. I really am... but I don’t think I can go back."
Her words hung heavy in the air.
"I’m with D now," she continued, glancing briefly at Ross, whose hand still rested calmly on her thigh.
"And I’m happy with him. I didn’t expect this. I didn’t plan for it. But it happened, and I won’t lie to myself just to make soone else feel better."
She hesitated, her voice gentler now. "Please... don’t stay here and torture yourself. Go back. Walk away before you hurt yourself even more."
For a mont, Steve didn’t move. He just stood there, frozen, his face unreadable.
Then, slowly, he took a long, deep breath.
His chest rose and fell as he swallowed whatever storm was building inside him.
He gave a single nod.
He didn’t say a word.
No curses. No threats. No final plea.
He simply turned around and walked out of the room—his footsteps echoing softly behind him, each one heavier than the last.
And just like that... he was gone.
The room remained silent for a few seconds longer, as if even the walls were processing what had just happened.
Then Ross let out a low, satisfied hum.
"Well," he said with a grin, "that went smoother than I expected."
***
Steve walked out of the house like a ghost. Caras and reporters sward him, bombarding him with questions the mont he stepped outside.
"Steve! What happened in there?"
"Did Heaven really choose Big D?"
"Are you leaving the show for good?"
He barely registered their voices but he answered them as if nothing wrong was happening.
After that, he just kept moving forward, eyes glazed, like he was walking in a trance.
A few shallow, rehearsed responses left his mouth, but he couldn’t rember what he said or even who he said it to.
Everything felt distant—like soone else was speaking through him.
He got into his car and drove.
The city lights passed in a blur. Red. Green. Yellow.
He didn’t rember stopping at any lights. Didn’t rember turning onto his street.
All he knew was one mont he was on the road, and the next... he was ho.
He stood in his front hallway for a long ti, staring at nothing.
Then the weight of it all ca crashing down on him like a tidal wave.
He clenched his fists, shaking his head slowly, trying to make sense of the fog in his mind.
"Fuck," he hissed. "What the hell just happened to ?"
The last thing he rembered clearly was standing in front of Heaven, pouring his heart out—fake or not.
He rembered the words, her rejection, the way she looked at Ross, the way Ross touched her like she belonged to him.
He rembered rage—pure, unfiltered rage—boiling in his veins.
He was supposed to lose it. He wanted to lose it.
If Heaven had chosen Ross, then he had sworn to himself he’d stay.
He’d stay and make their lives miserable.
He’d be the ghost in the walls, the unwelco shadow in their bedroom.
He would crash their private monts especially when they were fucking, taunt them, expose their weaknesses.
He would never let them have peace.
That had been his plan.
He was so sure of it.
So how the hell was he here now?
"I... I didn’t leave," Steve whispered to himself. "I wasn’t going to leave..."
He stumbled into the living room, collapsing onto the couch as panic began to rise in his chest.
"Did they make leave? No... nobody touched . I walked out on my own." His voice was shaking now.
"But why? I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to!"
He stood up again, pacing, like a caged animal.
His mind raced for answers, for anything that could explain what had happened.
Did Ross do sothing to him? Did soone hypnotize him? Drug him?
Was this so kind of sick joke orchestrated by the producers?
"No," he growled. "That doesn’t make sense. I was in control. I had to be."
But the longer he tried to convince himself, the more uncertain he beca.
His thoughts spiraled—mories warping, twisting.
He couldn’t even recall walking to his car. Had he blacked out?
Had sothing else taken over?
He looked at his own reflection in the dark TV screen across the room. His face looked pale.
Hollow. Almost unfamiliar.
"This isn’t ," he whispered again. "I don’t just... give up."
A long silence filled the room.
And then, slowly, a terrifying thought crept into his mind, one he hadn’t dared to consider until now:
What if soone—or sothing—forced him to leave?
What if Ross had more than charm?
What if Ross wasn’t just so lucky guy with good looks and a smug attitude?
What if there was sothing darker about him—sothing that could control people?
Steve sat back down, his entire body trembling now. He’d gone in with a plan.
A cruel, deliberate, perfect plan. And instead, he’d walked out like a sheep.
Against his will.
And now, alone in his house, the silence was suffocating.
The more he thought about it, the more the sense of unease grew inside him like a sickness.
He wasn’t sure what scared him more—that he had lost control...
Or that soone else had taken it from him.
Steve sat on the edge of his bed, still dazed and confused.
His mind was a chaotic storm of broken thoughts and unanswered questions.
He tried to piece everything together, but nothing made sense.
It was like his mory had gaps—big ones—and the more he tried to think, the more his head throbbed.
He didn’t even notice the hulking figure that had silently appeared behind him.
By the ti he sensed sothing was wrong, it was already too late.
"PAK!"
A heavy slap landed on the back of his head—loud, sharp, and powerful.
His vision went white, and then everything faded to black.
***
When Steve woke up, his head was pounding and his limbs refused to move.
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