Arga Bridgman had once lived inside a fortress of glass and steel — skyscrapers, boardrooms, glittering halls where his word carried weight and his smile carried power. Now, those walls felt thin, transparent, brittle.
Everywhere he turned, shadows followed him. Every mirror seemed to whisper her name. Every silence was filled with echoes of laughter — not hers now, but the memory of hers as a girl, the laughter that had been stolen from her and twisted into his shame.
He was unraveling, thread by thread, and he knew it.
But he couldn't stop it.
***
The office, once his sanctuary, had become a cage. He stared at spreadsheets and reports without seeing the numbers. Conversations blurred around him, voices muffled by the roar of his own thoughts.
His assistant knocked one morning with a file.
"Mr. Bridgman? These require your signature."
Arga looked up slowly. Her lips moved, but the words felt distant, underwater. He blinked at the papers in front of him, his own name printed neatly at the bottom.
He signed without reading. His hand shook so badly the pen left an ugly smear of ink.
When she left, he leaned back in his chair, pressing his palms against his eyes. In the darkness, he saw Sharon. Not the actress. Not the woman in silk gowns. But the girl he had mocked. The girl in the bathroom stall, clutching a crumpled paper caricature of herself.
Her sobs were louder than the ticking of the clock on the wall.
He opened his eyes, gasping. But the sound lingered.
***
It happened first at night, then in daylight.
He was walking through the lobby of Bridgman Tower when he saw her. Sharon, in her teenage years, standing among the marble pillars, her hair frizzy, her clothes ill-fitted. She looked at him with wide, broken eyes.
Arga froze, heart pounding.
Then, with a blink, she was gone.
The receptionist asked if he was all right. He muttered something about a headache and hurried to the elevator.
But in the mirrored walls of the elevator, her reflection stood beside him. Silent. Weeping.
When the doors opened, he staggered out, his breath shallow, sweat dripping down his spine.
***
Whiskey became his constant companion. He drank in the mornings now, just enough to dull the edge. By night, he drowned himself until the ghosts blurred, until Sharon's voice became a distant hum instead of a blade.
He told himself it was temporary. That once the press calmed down, once the board stopped whispering, once Sharon…
No. Not Sharon.
He couldn't even finish the thought.
***
His father summoned him one evening. The patriarch of the Bridgman family sat in his study, the smell of cigars heavy in the air.
"You're slipping," his father said bluntly. "I hear it in the boardroom. I see it in the markets. Our stock doesn't respond well to weakness, Arga. And right now, you reek of it."
Arga clenched his jaw. "It's temporary."
His father's eyes narrowed. "This woman. This actress. She's distracting you. You're letting her into our world when she should never have been in it. End it. Cut her off."
Arga laughed bitterly, rubbing a hand across his face. "You don't understand. It isn't that simple."
"Then make it simple," his father snapped. "Because if you don't, I will."
The threat hung heavy in the air.
Arga left with his chest tight, his mind spinning. He couldn't let his father intervene. Sharon wasn't just a distraction. She was something else entirely — something that had sunk its claws too deep.
But he also couldn't stop her.
***
At night, he scrolled through photographs of her online. Magazine covers. Red carpet shots. Paparazzi candids of her laughing outside restaurants.
He zoomed in on her face, tracing the lines with his finger across the screen. He told himself he was trying to understand her, to decipher the strategy behind her presence. But deep down, he knew it was obsession.
Every smile, every glance — he saw them as coded messages, taunts aimed at him alone.
He whispered aloud in his darkened room:
"What do you want from me, Sharon? What do you want?"
The silence offered no answer. Only the faint echo of his own voice.
***
One evening, drunk and restless, Arga found himself standing before the long mirror in his bedroom. He stared at his reflection, disheveled and weary.
"You deserve this," he muttered to himself. "You earned this."
The reflection sneered back at him, distorted by the haze of liquor. And then — he saw her again. Sharon, as a girl, standing behind him in the glass. Tears streaked her cheeks, her lips trembling as though she wanted to speak.
He spun around. The room was empty.
When he looked back at the mirror, she was gone.
He smashed the glass with his fist. Blood trickled down his knuckles, bright against the shards.
****
The next morning, he entered the boardroom late, bandaged hand tucked into his pocket. He tried to deliver his presentation, but his voice cracked halfway through. Words tangled on his tongue. His slides blurred before his eyes.
One board member leaned toward another, whispering. Arga caught it — the faintest smirk, the faintest doubt.
His chest tightened.
"I need a moment," he muttered, leaving abruptly.
In the hallway, he pressed his back against the wall, gasping for air. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear the walls down. Instead, he closed his eyes and saw Sharon again — not mocking, not laughing, but simply watching. Watching with the calm composure of a woman who held the script of his downfall in her hand.
***
Days later, fate — or perhaps Sharon's careful orchestration — placed them in the same room again. A private dinner hosted by a mutual investor. Only a dozen guests, seated around a long mahogany table.
Arga tried to focus on the conversation, but Sharon sat across from him, radiant in pale silver. She hardly spoke to him, directing her laughter and comments toward others.
But every so often, her gaze flicked his way. Not lingering, not obvious. Just enough to unnerve him.
When dessert was served, she leaned back slightly, her eyes meeting his for a fraction of a second. A faint, knowing smile curved her lips.
And in that instant, Arga felt the room collapse. His chest tightened, his palms sweated, and he had to excuse himself before anyone noticed his trembling.
In the restroom, he gripped the sink, staring into the mirror.
"She's destroying me," he whispered.
But even as he said it, he felt the twisted edge of something else beneath the despair. Fascination.
***
That night, he dreamed vividly. He and Sharon were back in their childhood school, the halls echoing with laughter. He chased after her, calling her name, but she always stayed just out of reach. When he finally caught her, she turned.
Not the awkward girl he remembered. The woman she had become. Beautiful, radiant — and holding a knife.
She pressed it to his chest, her smile soft.
"Now you know," she whispered.
He woke screaming, drenched in sweat, the sheets tangled around him.
***
Epilogue – The Breaking Point
In the silence of dawn, Arga sat alone in his study, the city still asleep beyond the window. His glass of whiskey sat untouched for once.
He stared at the rising sun, its light cutting across the skyline like a blade.
Something inside him had shifted. The unraveling was nearly complete. The threads of his composure had frayed to the breaking point.
And deep down, he knew: the next move was hers.
Sharon Countbell held the match. All he could do was wait for her to strike it.