I wake up and my heart is racing. My entire body is covered in sweat and my mind is fogged and filled with distorted images of what I was dreaming about.

The first couple of seconds, even though I'm agitated and on edge, this sense of relief washes over me.

But it doesn't last long. Because I quickly realize that I didn't dream it at all. Sure, I dreamed about him standing there waiting for me in the poorly lit street and chasing me down to get me to speak; but it wasn't a dream as much as it was my own mind rehashing, frame by frame, everything that happened last night.

Or was it tonight? I can't really tell. The room is pitch black, but since the blackout curtains are drawn, it could very easily be midday or the middle of the night.

Either way, I don't care to find out. Instead I just lay there, roasting in my own body heat, and trying to get rid of the haunting image of him.

By the time I wake up again, I feel a little bit more rested and I can now see a feeble light sneaking through the union of the curtains. It was, after all, the middle of the night when I startled myself awake before, and dawn is breaking just now.

The first thing I do, once I decide that I won't be getting out of this house all day, is groping for my phone and text Beth and ask her to cover my classes for today saying that I don't feel quite well. She won't read it until later in the morning, so I don't even bother waiting for a reply.

Instead, I just throw the phone away and proceed to the next order of business. Which is covering myself up to the head with the duvet and just try to shut up my raging mind.

I can't. Not even a little. The more I try to stop thinking, the louder my thoughts get. And I am on the verge of going insane.

It's like there is no escaping him. It is like he always fades away from my mind long enough to allow myself to think that I'm over him. And just when I'm on the cusp of finally moving on, he pops up out of nowhere, literally, ready to remind me there is simply no forgetting him.

How does he do that? How did he managed to put himself right in the middle of my path, ever so randomly, not once, not twice, but three times already?

Either he has known where I was all those times before and just found it funny to appear when he knew I least expected it, or this is too inevitably meant to be.

And I just don't know which one of those two options is the least terrifying.

I stay under the covers for a long while until I grow tired and annoyed from breathing the same recycled, stale air over and over again.

So I kick the bedding out of the way, letting the crisp, fresh air of the room graze my heated skin. And I shiver.

I sit on the edge of my bed, frantically jerking my legs up and down and rubbing my thighs with the same maniac energy.

I feel so uncomfortable in my own skin, like I could crawl out of it in an instant if I was given the chance.

"He found me."

I mutter to myself, trying remember the reasons why I ran away from him in the first place. And I can't remember them; or worse, I can but I just can't seem to make any sense of them at all.

My life was falling apart and I needed a fresh start. A clean slate for me to start writing my story anew.

But it is like when you're cleaning up your house, or your closet, at the end of every season. You start taking things out, and the feeling you get when you see all that space opening up as you throw them away it's so freeing, so releasing, you get carried away.

And then, when the seasons roll in and out, you remember you had one thing in particular that you shouldn't have tossed aside so recklessly.

Maybe a coat or a good pair of Uggs. One day it's freezing cold outside and all you want to do is get that one thing that always kept you warm and sheltered back. But you can't, because that coat is mad and those boots are hurt and probably providing their amazing warmth to someone else. And all they want is an explanation as to why you cast them aside; and if you ever tell them you were wrong and you want to be together with them again, they will laugh.

I know coats and boots don't laugh. They don't hold grudges either. But it's a bloody metaphor, so you get it.

My phone buzzes somewhere underneath the sheets and I lazily search for it. Before I can find it, the buzzing stops, followed by the chime of a text message coming in.

It's Beth. And that's when I realize that is already ten in the morning, and I have been here, in the dark, for hours.

I sigh deeply and I stand up, dragging my feet across the room and out the door to make myself something to eat.

"Hi." I say with a hoarse voice when the phone rings again. I wasn't trying to sound so affected but I guess it works for my lie. "Sorry I missed you just now, I was asleep."

I put her on speaker and leave the phone on countertop so I can have both hands to fix my breakfast.

"No problem. Are you okay? What's wrong?" She speaks loudly over the noises of yet another very busy morning in London.

"Nothing serious, just bad cramps." I lie, rubbing my belly and faking a pained facial expression as if she was standing in front of me. "And a consequent allergic reaction to the outside world."

She cracks up a little, snorting weirdly, but the she becomes quiet.

"Are you sure is nothing else, though?" She enquirers then, and I roll my eyes. "You were really weird last night on the cab, and I don't think that guy was just a guy."

I freeze with my hand in the air, for I am reaching for a clean cup from the cabinet above my head, and I just close my eyes in annoyance.

All I do is shake my head repeatedly before I remember she can't actually see me, so I blurt out a no that is far from believable.

"I mean, yes... I'm sure." I correct myself with a much steadier tone, resuming my movements. "And I don't know what you're talking about, I don't know who that guy was."

As I say those words aloud I can almost feel a real, physical pain on my stomach as though I am being punished not just for lying about feeling sick, but for denying him.

"All right, then. Feel better soon." She says not fully convinced. "I'll take your kids today."

The rest of the morning I just try to keep my mind off of things by binge watching one of the many shows I have been neglecting to keep up with over the last few months; but it's not actually working.

No matter how many characters die or loose a limb, I just can't get fully distracted.

There's this gnawing feeling at the back of my head. This itch that spreads all over my body to the tip of my fingers, that keep twisting around my phone.

By the time noon drags in I can't take it anymore; I can't fight it any longer. The itch has become unbearable and the urge unstoppable.

I still have his phone number. At least that survived my reckless seasonal cleanse. He won't recognize mine, though. I made sure to become untraceable that way.

If you don't hate me enough already, I think I'm ready to talk.

Now it's almost midnight, my phone and my entire house are dead silent. And if it wasn't because I know it's impossible, I could swear I hear someone laughing.

Song: This Love by Taylor Swift.