It wasn’t a bedroom.
It was a box.
A low twin bed. One thin blanket. A chair in the corner. Shelves half-filled with cardboard lids and a folded jacket. Storage.
He didn’t hesitate.
“This is yours,” he said. Then turned. And left.
Just like that. No explanation. No rules. Just... designation.
I didn’t step inside right away. I stood in the doorway, staring at the space like I could make it reject me. Like maybe if I stayed still long enough, the walls would push me back out.
The boxes were neatly stacked along one side. The bed looked untouched. Hospital-cornered. Clinical. It wasn’t a cell. It wasn’t cruelty. It was something colder.
More precise. It was placement.
And somehow…
That was worse.
I backed away. Down the hall. Past the bedroom door I used to wake up in—warm, safe, wrapped in his scent and everything I thought we were becoming.
I didn’t look inside. Couldn’t. But my feet moved anyway. Back toward the space where everything used to feel like home.
The kitchen. The soft window light. The hum of something domestic and real. But now? Now it all felt like a museum of a life I was no longer allowed to touch.
That’s when I saw it. Tucked into the alcove beside the liquor cabinet. Lit by a recessed bulb I knew hadn’t been on earlier. Intentional. Isolating. A small black stand sat at the center.
Velvet square.
And on it?—
The ring.
Wolfe’s ring.
The one he gave me when I thought permanence came in the shape of gold. The one I had taken off with shaking fingers and left behind like it would somehow protect us both.
It hadn’t. It hadmarkedthe moment I stopped belonging to him. But it hadn’t moved. It had been placed. Polished. Centered. Lit. Displayed. Like a trophy. Or a headstone. Or a promise that had been cracked open and left bleeding under glass.
I stepped forward slowly. Each breath felt heavier.
Each step closer to it a kind of collapse. I didn’t reach for it at first.
Just looked.
Stared at the smooth arc of gold. The weight of it. The way it still looked like it belonged to me. Even though I didn’t. I lifted my hand.
Fingers trembling like I was reaching for a live wire. And just as my fingertips brushed the edge?—
“No.”
The word snapped across the room like a whip.
I froze. Every muscle in my spine went rigid. His voice came from the hallway. Closer than I expected. I hadn’t heard him move. Hadn’t felt the air shift.
But suddenly?—
