I ran my fingers across the edge. Felt the fabric pull. She always rolled the sleeves.
I turned. Walked to her room. Her real room. Not the dumping ground I put her in for the first few nights. The light was off. I didn’t turn it on.
I opened the door and stood at the threshold. It felt like standing at the edge of something that could still hurt me.
The bed was unmade. Sheets tangled. Pillow dented.
The robe she wore the last time I saw her hung on the back of the door. Her shoes were lined up by the dresser.
I stepped inside. The air was different here. Like it remembered her.
I walked to the dresser. Opened the top drawer. Everything was folded. Too neat. Like she thought she’d come back to it. Like she thought she’d wake up in this bed tomorrow. The bed called to me like a punishment.
I sat down. Hands on my knees. The leather of my gloves creaked as I flexed my fingers. They hadn’t taken her from my arms. They’d taken her from my trust. That was worse.That was what I wouldn’t forgive.
I leaned forward. Set my elbows on my knees. Then reached for the nightstand drawer. Opened it. Her other collar still sat inside. Polished. Untouched. Waiting.
I ran my thumb across the inside. The engraving I never let her read:What you give me is breath.
I closed my eyes. Let the silence echo. Let it sound like her. But it didn’t.Not anymore.
Because her phone was here. It shouldn’t have been. Not facedown. Not hidden.
It should’ve been in her coat. In her fucking hand. Not left like a forgotten truth under the sheets.
And the second that landed—the second it hit me—something inside me snapped. I didn’t fold the sheets back. Irippedthem.
Tore the bed apart like it had lied to me. Like it hadswallowedher. I grabbed the mattress andflippedit.
Hard.
It slammed against the floorboards with a sound that didn’t echo?—
itshook. Feathers spilled from the pillow I’d crushed in one fist. My other hand punched the frame backward, sent it crashing against the wall.
Wood cracked. My knuckles split. I didn’t stop. I kicked the nightstand so hard it bounced off the drywall and collapsed sideways. The drawer flew open. Empty.
Everything was fucking empty.
Except—beneath the mattress.
Tucked into the dark.
Half-concealed.
Like it was waiting.
Her phone.
Face down.
Cold.
Her phone.
I froze. Not the one I gave her. The old one. The one she stopped using weeks ago.
The screen was cracked in the corner. Still had the same lock screen background—Camille’s photo, half-cropped, too bright. It shouldn’t have been here.
