My mouth is dry.
I taste fear.
And want.
And guilt.
And memory.
And him.
My eye catches the window over the sink.
The woods stare back at me through the glass — dark, dense, watching.
Waiting.
I swallow.
Hard.
The floor feels cold again, grounding me, holding me in place like it knows if I stand up I’ll run — or collapse.
The voicemail replays itself in my head.
Every word.
Every breath.
Every threat wrapped in devotion.
“I’m coming back for you.”
A shiver tears violently down my back.
I shouldn’t want that.
I shouldn’t.
I shouldn’t.
But my fingers curl in the fabric of my robe, gripping hard, knuckles white, because the truth I don’t say out loud is the truth that terrifies me the most:
I don’t know if I want to be saved…
…or found.
A floorboard creaks somewhere down the hall.
My breath stops.
My head snaps up.
Silence.
Empty.
But the kind of empty that feels like someone just left.
