Mallory exhaled beside her. “Wow. He really did some upgrades.”
But Savannah wasn’t listening. As her gaze scanned each image, the familiar and unfamiliar blended together in a cruel, perfect contradiction—like something sacred had been touched, reshaped. It was still Chase’s house, but somehow, it wasn’t. The kitchen had new cabinets, fresh paint. The living room looked brighter, the old furniture replaced, everything warm and polished, inviting but foreign. It was still him, but also not.
She kept scrolling, searching for something—anything—that still felt like him.
And then, she saw it.
Her breath caught.
"Oh my God." She exclaimed. Panic bloomed in her chest, spreading like wildfire.
Mallory jumped off the counter, alarmed. “What? What is it?”
Savannah froze, thumb hovering over the screen as her pulse roared in her ears.
"No."—"No, no, no." She repeated. Savannah could barely think, barely breathe, as she held up the phone with trembling fingers.
The guest bedroom on the first floor. Only—it wasn’t a guest bedroom anymore.
The walls had been painted a soft, light gray with crisp white trim. The built-in shelves had been refinished and expanded—the same ones she had once imagined filling with stories.
But there were more now. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, filled with books, some new, some worn from the touch of countless hands.
And the bay window?—A reading nook now.
Cushions, pillows, the perfect spot to get lost in a book.
It was beautiful.
It was exactly how she had pictured it.
But that wasn’t what stole her breath.
No.
One detail shattered her. One detail sent every carefully constructed wall she had built around herself crumbling to the ground.
Centered on one of the shelves, nestled between the books, was an empty space.
And in that space, written in elegant, familiar script, was a single quote:
Books are my love language.
Savannah broke.
A strangled sob ripped from her chest as she slapped a hand over her mouth, body jolting forward from the sheer force of it.
Mallory stilled. She didn’t know. She didn’t understand.
Savannah’s fingers curled around the phone, knuckles white, tears flooding her vision, drowning her in the weight of it.
She shook her head, voice shaking, breathless. “When we went on our getting lost trip—”
Mallory didn’t move, but her eyes flickered with something fragile, something soft and knowing.
Savannah swallowed, her throat thick with emotion. “We found this old bookstore. It was beautiful. Chase just stood there, watching me, smiling like a fool as I went through hundreds of books.”
Mallory inhaled sharply.
