Scarlett
The house doesn’t sound the same after he leaves.
That’s the first thing I notice.
The hum of the fridge is suddenly too loud. The ticking clock over the stove feels like it’s drilling into my skull. Even the sea outside—usually a soft, expensive promise—sounds wrong. Like it’s waiting.
I stay on the kitchen floor for a long time.
I don’t know how long. Minutes. An hour. Long enough for the oil in the pan to burn and smoke to curl up toward the ceiling in lazy, poisonous spirals. Long enough for my knees to go numb and my throat to ache from swallowing sounds I’m not letting out.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
I keep staring at the spot where the letters were. The bare patch of counter looks obscene, like a body without skin. Like something’s been ripped out and left exposed.
He read them.
That’s the thought that keeps circling back, relentless.
He didn’t just see them. He read them. Every word. Every line Kai wrote like a blade sliding under my ribs. Every sentence I told myself didn’t matter because I never answered.
Did you read them?
The words echo now, mocking me.
I press my palms into my eyes until I see stars. My chest feels hollowed out, like something vital has been scooped clean and left bleeding quietly.
The truth rises automatically, desperate to be believed, even though it doesn’t save me.
I loved him.
I drag myself up from the floor and move through the house like a ghost. The polished surfaces reflect me back in fragments—my face blotchy and red, my eyes too bright, my mouth trembling like it’s about to confess something unforgivable.
In the bathroom, the air still smells faintly of steam and soap.
And him.
It’s not real. I know that. I know scent memory is a trick, a lie the body tells when the mind starts slipping.
But my stomach twists anyway.
I grip the edge of the sink and stare at my reflection.
You did this.
The thought doesn’t sound like Noah.
It sounds like Kai.
I flinch hard enough to knock my elbow against the counter. Pain shoots up my arm, sharp and grounding, and I cling to it like a lifeline.
He warned you.
I shake my head, whispering out loud now.
“Stop.”
The mirror doesn’t listen.
