🖤 The Monster Inside Me 🖤 - Chapter 4 [“He thought he was a monster—until she looked into his darkness and chose to stay.”]
Chapter 4: Jealousy & The Trigger
Love doesn’t always arrive with roses.
Sometimes, it comes dressed as rage.
Sometimes, it shows up as something uglier — jealousy.
And for Aditi, that emotion was both foreign and terrifying.
It was Wednesday afternoon when Aditi arrived at Aditya’s penthouse for the first time.
He had insisted — “You’ve seen my words, now see my world.”
The elevator doors opened into a space that was both haunting and beautiful. Floor-to-ceiling windows bathed the place in gray light, but the rest of the apartment was sterile, minimal, and lonely. Walls painted in ash, no family pictures. Just a typewriter on a glass table, and scattered books — most half-read.
He was waiting at the piano.
“You play?” she asked, surprised.
“Only when I can’t scream.”
They were editing Chapter 18 when the doorbell rang.
Aditya stiffened. His body language shifted instantly — from open to guarded.
Aditi could sense it.
He didn’t get up right away. Whoever was at the door knocked again — this time, more urgently.
He sighed and opened it.
“Hello, Adi.”
The voice was silk dipped in venom.
She was tall, flawless, and elegant. Dressed in designer beige, stilettos clicking like a warning bell. Her eyes landed on Aditi, then lingered just a second too long.
“I didn’t know you had company,” she said with a smile that never reached her eyes.
“Rhea,” Aditya said flatly. “This isn’t a good time.”
Rhea walked right in, like she owned the air in the room. “I just wanted to check on you. Heard you’re writing again. Thought I’d see it for myself. Besides…” She glanced at Aditi again. “It’s been too long since you had real company.”
Aditi stood slowly, arms crossed.
Something in her stomach twisted — a sharp, acidic heat that had nothing to do with Rhea’s words but everything to do with the way she touched Aditya’s arm.
Possessively.
Like she had a right.
Aditi didn’t speak.
But Rhea did. Oh, she did.
“You must be the intern?”
“Editor,” Aditi corrected, voice even.
“Of course.” Rhea’s smirk widened. “They send you younger these days.”
Aditya stepped in then, voice clipped. “Rhea, this is not the place for your games.”
“Relax,” she purred. “I’m just curious how you’re replacing your therapy with a… student project.”
That was it.
Aditi walked to the door, grabbed her bag, and turned to Aditya.
“Finish your conversation,” she said coolly. “Call me when you remember who you were before she made you forget.”
Then she left.
She didn’t cry.
Not in front of Rhea.
But later, alone in her flat, she stared at the manuscript. Her name on the last page looked like a lie.
What was she to him?
A project partner?
An emotional crutch?
Or something more?
Something Rhea had seen before even she could admit it?
She felt sick.
Not because of Rhea.
But because of how deeply her heart had tied itself to a man who still hadn’t said he needed her.
That night, she didn’t pick up his calls.
Or his messages.
Meanwhile, at Aditya’s penthouse:
He stared at the door she walked out of.
Rhea had left, triumphant. But he didn’t feel victorious.
He felt emptier.
Because Aditi was gone.
And he realized something far scarier than the monster under his bed:
He didn’t know how to survive without her voice anymore.
Chapter 6 - https://kvs302.blogspot.com/2025/07/monster-inside-me-chapter-6-last.html
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