Sleeping With a Dragon

It was supposed to be a beautiful day, one of those rare ones filled with lightness and quiet surprises. But then he called.

Adam’s voice, at first, sounded gentle, even concerned. Yet Anastasia knew better. Concern wasn’t why he dialed her number. Adam always had something to complain about, and more often than not, someone else to blame.

She was already carrying more than she could bear. The results of her CT scan haunted her thoughts, anxiety drained her appetite, and exhaustion hung on her shoulders like a weight. What she needed was comfort, reassurance, a reminder that she wasn’t facing her fears alone. Instead, Adam demanded her energy, expected her to brighten up his world while hers was falling apart.

When she reached out to him days later, summoning the last of her courage, she was met with a cold shoulder. No warmth. No tenderness. Just silence where affection should have been. That was when she blocked his number for the first time.

The pain of it all was sharp. He claimed she meant the world to him, but when she needed him most, he left her out in the cold.

The Call That Broke Her

One night, Anastasia answered the phone again. She wanted to explain, to tell him about her fear and her sleepless nights, hoping this time he might listen.

For a moment, it seemed he cared. For a moment, she believed his intentions were good. But soon his tone shifted, the mask slipped, and concern turned into criticism. He listed the ways she had failed him, how she hadn’t been enough.

Her throat tightened. The air around her grew heavy. She was already fighting a battle for her health, yet Adam piled on more weight, more tension. In that moment, Anastasia understood—she could never count on him. His love was never steady. It was chaos, blame, and passion wrapped in barbed wire.

Yes, there were moments of excitement, even intimacy that thrilled her. But looking back, was it worth the sleepless nights? The tears? The emotional rollercoaster?

Adam didn’t want a partner. He wanted a vessel for the pain he refused to face. He offloaded his darkness onto her, filling her with wounds that weren’t hers to carry.

They had been doomed from the start. Two broken people meeting at their lowest, mistaking survival for love. Trauma bonded. He clung to alcohol and weed, she clung to him.

Addicted to Him

“Why can’t I let him go?” she often asked herself.
“Why do I always answer his calls? Why does he take up so much space in my mind?”

The answer was clear—addiction. Not to substances, but to Adam himself.

And he made sure to feed it. He told her she never reached out enough, that she was too busy, too distant. But how could she? Every time she misstepped, every time she wasn’t perfect, he exploded. He blamed the weather, his hangovers, even autism—anything but himself.

Money was always tight with him. He couldn’t take her to dinner, couldn’t buy flowers, couldn’t make even small gestures of care. Yet she spent her money and her time on long bus rides just to be near him. She skipped events she wanted to attend. She listened to hours of his complaints, his bragging, his endless stories about exes and dreams.

Adam’s life was always about someday. Someday he’d save money. Someday he’d travel the world. Someday she’d be by his side for an adventure. But today? Today she suffocated.

She lived small to protect his bubble, never daring to speak too loudly, never daring to spread her wings. He lived on a boat, tied to it like an anchor, calling it his home. To him, it was freedom. To her, it was a cage.

But Adam didn’t know who he was dealing with. He thought he could tame her. But Anastasia was a dragon. And dragons don’t shrink themselves to fit inside closets.

The Breaking Point

In her heart, Anastasia had tried to let him go long before that final conversation. Love at first sight had quickly unraveled into suspicion, secrecy, and suffocation.

She compared Adam to someone else in her life—a man who wasn’t exciting, but who was kind. Who didn’t thrill her, but who made her feel safe. Safety, she realized, mattered more than chaos.

But still, every time Adam summoned her, she went. Her heart and her mind waged war, and her feet betrayed her.

Adam always wanted more. More time, more attention, more sacrifice. Like a vampire, he drained her life force, ignoring the fact that she was battling cancer. His love was conditional, always demanding, never giving.

She had been there for him when he almost drowned, when his ex nearly destroyed him, when he broke his leg, when his dog died. She carried his grief. She carried his pain. But when she needed him most, he carried nothing for her.

The Goodbye

That night, when Adam finally said the words—“We don’t belong together”—something inside her shifted.

He thought he was ending things. But in truth, he was setting her free.

Before the flood of angry texts could arrive, she blocked his number. She knew she had to be strong, to protect herself from the chaos she had been drowning in for a year.

Their relationship had always been turbulence, a plane destined to crash. He was the pilot, she was the co-pilot, and somewhere along the way she had fallen asleep and let him steer them into disaster.

But now, at 4 a.m., Anastasia was wide awake. Awake to the truth. Awake to her freedom. She wondered about the job interview she had in the morning. She wondered if she’d ever see him again.

And for the first time, she realized she didn’t need to.

Because dragons don’t beg to be loved.
Dragons breathe fire—and burn their cages down.