“He loves my crazy,” she snapped. “He told me. No one fucks him like I do. This turns him on. The fire. The flood. It’s foreplay. It’s what we do.”
“I’m on his computer now. No password. Poor baby. I’m in everything.”
“Sage, stop. Get out. Please.”
“I KNOW HE CHEATED! EMILY! HER NAME IS EMILY!”
Her scream ripped through the line—raw, feral, shattering.
“BUT HE’LL REALIZE NO ONE WILL EVER MATCH ME!”
Something dinged in my kitchen—the oven timer—and I flinched like it was a bomb.
“He’ll thank me for this,” she whispered suddenly, eerily calm. “He’ll come home and fuck me on the ruins.”
A frantic rustling.
“WHERE IS IT? I KNOW IT’S HERE!”
“What—?”
“His other guitar. The back up,” she snarled. “I’m going to smash it.”
“SAGE—NO?—”
The line went dead.
I sat there long after, the phone still pressed to my ear, listening to nothing.
Water roaring.
Fire crackling.
Her voice—convinced this destruction was devotion.
She wasn’t just destroying his house.
She was performing.
And deep in my gut, terror bloomed—black and absolute.
If she believed this would win him back…
What would she do when it didn’t?
The house felt wrong after the call ended.
Too quiet. Too still. Like it was holding its breath.
I sat frozen on the couch, phone still pressed to my ear, staring at the snow whipping sideways beyond the windows. My heart was still racing, thudding so hard it made my ribs ache. Every sound felt amplified—the tick of the wall clock, the hum of the heater, the distant groan of wind forcing itself down the chimney.
“Beth?”
Mom’s voice drifted in from the kitchen. Careful. Concerned.
I didn’t answer.
Footsteps approached. Then she was there, standing in the doorway, dish towel in her hands. She took one look at my face and went still.
