There is a line of light where the glass meets the frame, a seam that catches a sliver of sun between clouds.In it, for a second, I see the reflection of the room stacked over the cliff: the chaise, the soft lamp, the sweater hanging off my shoulder.My face, pale and unvarnished, floats in that slice of light.I do not like the person who looks back.
I tell myself, out loud, because silence makes my thoughts run too fast: I am allowed to be here.I am allowed to breathe.The words sound foreign in my mouth.I repeat them, and this time they mean something small and stubborn—a single defiant breath between the waves.Not sure if this is what will keep me alive for another day.
Beyond the window, the world is all salt and slate.The bedroom reads like a private suite at the end of the earth: wide-plank oak underfoot, finished so smooth it almost reflects the light, a headboard carved from a single slab of wood and treated to show grain without a nick.
Sheets are white and taut.A cashmere throw folded with obsessive neatness at the foot of the bed—a polished brass lamp across a hand-knotted rug.A couple of leather armchairs sit angled to the glass.
There’s a sleek turntable on a console, and its stack of vinyl is boxed in custom sleeves.A crystal carafe and two tumblers sit on a tray beside a hand-carved figure of sea salt, everything chosen and placed so it reads as comfort rather than clutter.
The room is luxurious and disguised as restraint: high-end finishes and artisan touches.Everything is built to be admired and to keep its distance, which makes me feel smaller in its measured light.When my feet hit the planks, the house answers with a single, controlled creak—as if the house is announcing my existence.
I sit there a moment and, from the corner of my eye, catch myself in the tall mirror propped against a dresser.My face looks washed out, as if someone turned down the color—my skin gone to a pale, the hollows around my cheekbones more obvious than they should be.My lips are cracked.I look away before the glass can spell out everything I already know.
I’m broken.
The door creaks.
My pulse spikes.
My hand clamps the sweater at my throat, fingers digging into the knit as if holding myself still.Terror unspools hot and fast under my ribs—I’m almost certain it’s him.I breathe like I’ve sprinted: quick, shallow pulls that leave a metallic aftertaste on my tongue.
Every tiny sound—the faint step in the hall, the whisper of fabric, the click of a hinge—snaps into focus, each one a sentence I haven’t learned how to answer.The house falls quiet around me, the light narrowing until all that exists is the space between the door and whatever waits beyond it.
Then he appears.Eddie.He’s filling the doorway with a calm that feels measured—too careful.Suit trousers, even though we’re God-knows-where on the ocean’s edge—pressed, dark clothes that say someone never learned to be messy with their life.
He stands straight, hands folded a second before they relax, a watch catching light at his wrist.His hair is neat.His mouth is a plane I used to map and no longer know.
I think I’ve conjured him up for a second—an apparition summoned by my fear.My brain has been supplying me with memories of him and Barret when I can’t take the abuse anymore.Memories that might not be mine anymore.
Eddie takes in the room as if wondering how I’ll react.
“You’re awake,” he says.The sentence is stripped, but his voice gathers more than the words: worry threaded with relief, a tired patience I want to lean on but cannot.His eyes search my face the way someone reads a ledger, quick and precise.
There’s care there—a soft crease by the eye that means he notices small things—and something else, a calculation that keeps the care from being whole.
“B’s bringing you breakfast,” he says.“Oatmeal, fruit, tea ...unless you want something else.”
He rattles off the choices like he’s trying to be useful, like something as small as porridge might fix whatever is fraying inside me.It’s clumsy kindness, probably meant to pull me back from the edge of myself.
I listen because for a second it feels like a dream where I’m back with them, necessary enough to feed, to care for after a night of sex.Someone worth noticing.
I want to tell him I don’t need a menu, that I don’t know how to be part of this anymore.And by this, I might mean my life—I’m too broken to be anything or maybe want to be.
“Thanks,” I offer, the word comes almost torn.
He steps closer, and the cologne I’ve smelled on the sweater registers in the room.For a brief and stupid second, my body remembers warmth.I remember Eddie’s laugh, the way it filled small rooms and spilled over people.I remember Barret’s rough and low voice and how he tried to be gentle and kept missing the mark.Which was fine.I didn’t want them to treat me like I was delicate—some flower or a weak woman who could break easily.
Suddenly, he speaks, “Cleo, are you—” He stops, exhales, shakes his head like he’s annoyed at himself for the question.“—of course you’re not okay.How stupid of me to ask.I just ...say something, baby, please.”
The plea is unexpected.I don’t know what he wants—proof that I’m still salvageable?
He lingers, studying me the way someone inspects a painting to see if it can be restored.I can read the calculus now: does she look alive enough to keep?Will she fit?For a second, I think he’ll tell me what to do—eat, rest, stay quiet.Instead, he presses his lips together, pivoting away like the matter is undecided.
As he moves away, daylight pours through the cracked door and pools across his jaw, gilding the practiced lines.His shoulders never slack—posture learned in boardrooms and at church tables—control wrapped in a suit that says he never has to get his hands dirty.He doesn’t slam the door.He doesn’t step close.He leaves it ajar, a thin promise that he might return.
The room takes him back into itself; sunlight floods the glass and sets the curtains aglow, dust drifting lazily in the beams.The ocean beyond the cliff is bright and loud now, sheets of silver running toward the rocks.The sound makes the whole place feel bigger and smaller at once.
I whisper to the window, “Well, Cleo.This is either a nightmare or a new cage.”
