#SuperViral, Ch 14: Glowing Pains Pt. 3

Two months. Lena Petrova played the cool girlfriend for two months.

She laughed as flour dusted David's nose during their pasta attempts. His hands on her waist as he leaned in to kiss the powder from her cheek. She wandered the Art Institute halls, his hand warm in hers, footsteps echoing through marble corridors. She curled against him on her couch, his arm heavy across her shoulders, some critically acclaimed drama flickering on screen. Perfect moments. Lens-feed worthy. Everything she'd dreamed of: a kind, handsome man who adored her. Normal. Happy. Stable.

The silver bracelet never left her wrist.

Morning, noon, night. She showered with it, water streaming over the metal. She slept with it, felt its cool presence against her pulse like a second heartbeat. The thought of removing it - even for a moment - sent ice through her veins. David catching her anxiety flaring violet across her cheeks? Her joy painting her skin gold without warning? The bracelet wasn't a device. It was armor.

But armor has weight.

David surprised her with peonies one afternoon. Pale pink, her favorite. He'd remembered from some offhand comment weeks ago. The joy should have blazed through her, golden and pure, lighting up her skin like sunrise. Instead, she felt pleasant warmth. Distant. Intellectual appreciation. Her skin stayed neutral as porcelain while something inside her screamed.

That evening, he confided a childhood wound over wine. His voice broke. She felt love crash through her chest, profound and aching. Her skin remained placid. Calm. Dead. She reached for his hand. Squeezed it. Said the right words. All while her emotional landscape stayed flat as glass.

Her emotional landscape had once been chaotic aurora - wild, unpredictable, brilliant. Now it was overcast sky. Grey. Uniform. Safe.

She told herself this was the price of admission. Worth paying.

David couldn't ignore the vacuum.

They were washing dishes one evening, warm water running over plates, soap bubbles catching the light. He handed her a dripping bowl. "You're hard to read," he said. Casual. Like he'd been thinking about it for a while. "You know that?"

She kept her eyes on the bowl. "What do you mean?"

"You have this wall up." He turned off the water. Dried his hands on the towel. "I know you're private - an artist, all that. I get it. But sometimes I wish I knew what you were really feeling. What's actually going on in there." He tapped her temple gently, affectionately.

Guilt stabbed through her. Sharp. Hot. The bracelet suppressed the nervous blue before it could surface on her cheeks. Before he could see. She smiled. Practiced. Serene. The smile she'd perfected for her @AuraORA posts.

"I'm just quiet," she said. The lie tasted like ash in her mouth. "You know me. I process things internally."

He nodded. Seemed to accept it. Pulled her close for a quick kiss. But she'd seen the flicker of disappointment in his eyes first.

His comment validated everything. See? The voice in her head whispered. It's working. Privacy secure. He doesn't suspect a thing.

He was falling in love with the mystery. The edited version. The lie. The carefully curated version of herself that she could control, manage, present to the world without risk.

The real Lena - chaotic, glowing, uncontrolled - stayed locked away.

"You can trust me," David said another day. They were walking through Lincoln Park, fall leaves crunching underfoot. He stopped. Turned to face her. Blue eyes soft and serious. "Whatever you're hiding, I won't judge. You can be yourself with me. All of yourself. I'm here for you."

His hand cupped her cheek. Thumb brushing her skin. Warm. Gentle. Trusting.

Lena swallowed. Blinked back tears that threatened to trigger the bracelet's response. If only you knew. If you could see what I'm keeping from you. If you knew how much of me I'm hiding behind this calm mask.

She kissed him instead of answering. Let the kiss say what she couldn't.

That night she lay against his chest, her back nestled against him, his hand warm on her hip, his breathing slow and steady. The room was dark except for streetlight filtering through the curtains. She stared into the shadows, trying to imagine a different life.

A life where she could remove the bracelet. Sleep next to him bare and honest. Wake up with her emotions written on her skin. A life where she could trust him to love her - quirks, anxieties, neuroses, imperfections, all of it.

She tried to hold the image. Couldn't. It dissolved like smoke.

His arm tightened around her. "You okay?" he murmured, half-asleep. "You're tense."

"Fine," she whispered. "Just thinking."

"About what?"

"Nothing important."

He kissed the back of her neck. "Love you."

"Love you too."

The words were true. The withholding was killing her.

The hollowness bled into her studio.

Her sanctuary became a sterile lab. The emotional numbness she welcomed in her personal life killed her art. Her creativity had always been two steps: raw surge of emotion, then disciplined shaping of that energy into light. The surge came first. Always. A moment when grief or joy or rage would crack her open, and the light would pour out uncontrolled, wild, true.

Now the raw material was gone.

She forced it anyway.

For a week she worked on "Meditations on Serenity" for her Current channel. She sat cross-legged in her studio's center. Closed her eyes. Breathed deep. Commanded the light from her skin.

It obeyed.

Perfect, precise patterns emerged - cool blues bleeding into gentle lavenders bleeding into soft whites. The colors swirled exactly as she directed. Mathematical. Controlled. Every transition smooth as silk.

Hollow. Technical.

No chaotic energy crackling beneath. No ghost of raw feeling that had made her work compelling. She watched the playback later. Felt nothing. The piece was beautiful. Empty.

She posted it anyway. The likes came in. The comments. Positive, mostly. But something had shifted.

Her social media presence began to suffer. How could she post wellness content about "embracing your inner light" while actively suppressing her own? The hypocrisy burned constant.

She recycled old ideas. Posted throwback content from months ago, back when her light had been real. Her captions felt generic, hollow. Empty words about authenticity from someone living a lie.

Her Glow-Getters noticed.

The comments section, once pure praise, began to shift.

"Are you okay, Lena? You seem distant lately."

"Love the new piece, but I miss the fire in your old stuff!"

"Your light seems different. Quieter. Is everything alright?"

Each comment was a small knife. Each notification fueled her anxiety, made her grip the dimmer switch tighter. Vicious cycle. The device she'd sought to solve her dating life now controlled everything. Creative poison. Slowly dimming the inner light she'd built her entire brand on sharing.

The serene artist was gone. Replaced by a creatively bankrupt performer, terrified the lie was about to unravel.

***

The conversation started over takeout on David's apartment floor. Blueprints and soil samples scattered around them. They were talking about leases, about the future.

David grew serious. Put down his fork. Turned to face her completely. Took her hands in his. The air thickened.

"Lena." His voice soft. Sincere. Gaze direct. "We've been together a few months now, and they've been the best months of my life." He squeezed her hands. "I'm falling in love with you. Deeply. I want more. I want to build something real with you. Maybe we should think about finding a place together."

Complete vulnerability. Beautiful. Terrifying.

Inside Lena, emotion surged. Soaring, brilliant love for this kind man who wanted to build a future with her. Sharp, piercing fear of that same future. Of taking such a step. Of it falling apart. The most powerful, complex feeling she'd experienced in months. Chaotic storm of joy and terror.

Too much for the dimmer switch.

As she opened her mouth to respond, sharp, unnatural cold jolted up her arm from the silver bracelet. Like an ice cube pressed directly against her skin. System failure. For one terrifying split second, the device failed.

The dam broke.

Brilliant, uncontrolled flash of pure emotion burst from her. Chaotic explosion of light: dazzling golden-white joy at its core. Shot through with panicked, strobing pulses of terrified blue. The light overpowered the room's normal lighting. Shadows leaped and danced. Messy. Chaotic. Overwhelming.

Utterly her.

The flare lasted less than a second before the device - final, chilling tingle - clamped down hard. Forced the light back into its cage. The room returned to normal.

David blinked. His hands still holding hers. Pure shock on his face. "Whoa." He looked around. "Did you see that? Power surge? The lights just went crazy." He looked back at her. Slight frown. "You okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Lena's heart hammered against her ribs. He had to feel it through their joined hands. Her mind raced, grabbing for familiar weak excuses. "Yeah... yeah, I'm fine." Her voice too high. "Weird. Must be the old wiring in this building. It does that sometimes."

The lie felt pathetic. All she had.

She moved the conversation forward. Responded to his heartfelt declaration with quiet, controlled affection. A pale copy of the brilliant flare he'd just witnessed.

Terrified. The dam had almost broken. The real her - chaotic, glowing, human-lava-lamp her - had almost spilled out. The carefully built illusion of the cool, mysterious girlfriend had nearly shattered. She'd come so close to losing everything.

"What's wrong?" David asked as they crawled into bed that night. She was distant, distracted. Heart still beating wild and erratic. Hands shaking slightly. Breathing fast and shallow. "It's okay." He wrapped her in his arms. "No pressure, no expectations. We don't have to make a decision now. We can wait until we're both ready."

A good man. Wonderful man. No idea how badly he'd almost been burned.

"I'm fine," she repeated. Voice small. A lie. They both knew it.

He didn't press. Just pulled her closer. Held her tight. Whispered, "I'm here."

She wasn't fine. She was falling apart.

Later that night, alone in the bathroom, the pretense of calm collapsed. She sank onto her bed. Body trembling with aftershocks. She unclasped the silver bracelet, turning the cool, sleek metal over in her palm. Perfect. Undamaged. The close call had shaken her to her core. Revealed a truth she'd been desperately trying to ignore.

Her entire happiness, her "normal" life with a man she was falling in love with, depended completely on grey-market, experimental technology built by a man she barely knew. Her life wasn't real. It was fragile illusion. One malfunction, one dead battery, one powerful emotional surge away from total collapse.

The deep, soul-crushing emptiness she'd been feeling for months - the creative stagnation, the muted joy - wasn't just a side effect. It was the crushing absence of her true self. A ghost haunting the corners of her own quiet life. She had traded her brilliant, chaotic soul for fragile, borrowed normalcy.

The price might have been too high.

The following week, the unspoken truth grew worse. The close call had left Lena feeling unsteady. Walking on fragile glass. Every moment with David touched with fear that her true, glowing self might burst out.

They sat together on her couch. Evening light soft and golden through the large studio window, dust motes dancing in the beams. David sketched excitedly in his notepad, pencil scratching across paper. His passion contagious, his energy filling the space.

"I was thinking." He turned the pad to show her. A rough but beautiful sketch of a garden. Winding paths, lush greenery, a small hidden bench tucked beneath a willow tree. "For the place we'll get together. A garden. Our garden. A place that's quiet and beautiful, where we can just... be." He'd even sketched tiny flowers along the borders. Peonies.

He looked up from his sketch. Eyes full of warm, open affection that made her heart ache. Physical pain in her chest. He took her hand. Fingers traced the outline of her knuckles, the delicate bones of her hand, the silver bracelet on her wrist. "I love you, Lena." Voice soft, full of genuine warmth. Every word sincere. "I love you so much."

Inside her, a supernova of love lit up. Pure, powerful emotion. The biggest feeling she'd had in months. So huge it felt like it was pressing against the inside of her skin, trying to escape, demanding to be seen. A desperate, brilliant golden glow fighting to burst free, to answer his declaration with its own honest, glowing truth. To show him how much she loved him back. To let her skin blaze with it.

The dimmer switch on her wrist did its job. Faint, almost unnoticeable coolness against her pulse. Like ice water in her veins. Held the light back. Regulated her. Muted her. Turned the supernova into a candle flame. Manageable. Controlled. Safe.

She looked at him. This kind, wonderful man who loved a ghost. A carefully edited, beautifully composed version of a woman. He loved the mystery, the composure, the quiet she had so carefully performed for him. The serene artist. The girl who never lost control.

Would he still love the brilliant, chaotic, emotionally transparent creature that the bracelet kept chained in the dark? The real Lena, who glowed like a dying star when she felt things this deeply?

"I love you too, David," she said. The words were true. Every single one.

But as they left her lips, they felt incomplete. Trapped behind glass. A pale echo of the brilliant flare screaming to be set free inside her chest. Her voice was steady. Measured. Her skin remained perfectly, beautifully, terribly neutral. Porcelain smooth. Dead calm.

She knew, in that moment, sitting on her couch with golden light streaming through the windows, that she should tell him everything. Take off the bracelet. Let her skin blaze with all the love she felt. Show him who she really was - chaotic and brilliant and messy and real. Face whatever came next.

But the fear was a physical thing. A cold hand gripping her heart.

The fear of his polite smile turning into alarm. The confusion in his eyes. The fear of him stepping back. The fear of losing this perfect, fragile life she had built.

Too great.

So she smiled. Leaned in. Kissed him softly. And she lied.

She lied with full knowledge that every word, every smile, every muted moment would slowly kill the brilliant, glowing core of her being. The part of her that made her an artist. The part that made her real.

Every day, every time the bracelet activated with that faint cool tingle, a small piece of her soul died. She could feel it. The slow erosion. The gradual dimming.

She was disappearing. Becoming a ghost in her own skin.

And the worst part? She couldn't stop. Didn't know how to stop. The thought of David seeing her - really seeing her - was more terrifying than the slow death she was already dying.

So she kept the bracelet on. Kept smiling. Kept performing.

And every night, alone in the dark, she wondered how long she could keep it up before there was nothing left of her at all.

***