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During a wellness check in the woods, he had fallen into a lake and cracked his head against debris left behind. Drowned within minutes. When the call came, we were already on our way home, driving through the winding streets of Archmouth.

Ash only said, “a drowning?” Too steady like he was already far away from himself, or couldn’t reconcile that the man he’d run from was now dead.

Who were we without the people that created us?

Ash made the decision to leave me across the world and head back home. It was strange, we’d just seen his father mere days ago before we left town.

The funeral came and went. And when Ash arrived back to the rain and fog, I knew something had shifted. There were bruises along his neck, littered all the way down to his wrist. We were in the kitchen when he told me, “I signed up for the military.”

I laughed reflexively. “The military? That’s a major decision.”

“It’s only right. My father was a decorated military man.” He stared at me too coldly.

“What does this mean for us?” I asked, knowing he’d already made up his mind.

“There is no us, Sara. There never was…” He glanced off toward the window.

There was nothing outside but frigid death—old trees and molding unkempt buildings. I stared in disbelief, there I was losing yet another person in the same way Kane had done to me. So cold and final. Death would have been gentler.

But my heart didn’t shatter the way it did with Kane, this wasn’t the anguish I’d known. This was uncharted territory. His words landed like a necklace of stones around my shoulders. I collapsed onto a chair, head in my hands. He sat beside me, placing an arm around my shoulders, planting a soft kiss on my forehead.

“This way is better. There’s so much of me you’ll never know. And I don’t want to expose you to that darkness.”

“There’s no excuse for any of this.”

“Would it make it better if I slept with someone else?” He turned to me and I retracted the oncoming tears with a flush of anger.

“What?” I stood abruptly, taking slow steps away from him.

I memorized the way he stared off into emptiness, the perfect space of the bruises along his neck, the way his gaze met mine torn between guilt and concern.

“No, you didn’t. You wouldn’t,” I said, slowly.

“I did.” He stood up and met me halfway. I backed up on instinct; the home we’d shared for suddenly became too suffocating.

“There was once someone you loved more than I. You still speak of him in your dreams. Every night that I lay next to you, I can feel it in your sounds, hear it in your unspoken words. I’ve been thinking, I know there’s a reason you refuse to see him, despite being friends with his girlfriend. I know I’m no match for him. It’s why you’ve forced yourself to avoid him whenever you see him on campus. It’s why you’ve held out on intimacy for years. I’m not gullible or lost. I’m here to tell you Sara, the inevitable always comes crashing, and we’re here right now.”

Those were the last words we said to one another because I wouldn’t respond to what were obviously lies, perpetuated so that he’d feel better about himself. As I write this, the lance that pierced my heart still holds steady and the man who lodged it there is far away, yet present in my soul.

FORTY-TWO

April 2006

I was alone as I walked the cobblestone streets of Archmouth’s campus, drifting from the university into town as the last light of the afternoon drained from the sky. A light rain misted every so often, clinging to the stones, splashing against my boots and soaking the hem of my coat. It didn’t matter. The foul-smelling water would not be visible on my all-black attire. My outfit of grief.

I passed the cafe near the corner of the university’s square, and caught sight of a couple from seminar, folded into one another in a way that suggested they had not yet experienced anything bad in their relationship. Because that’s what relationships and love were, right? Tears, lies and a whole lot of bloodshed masked behind bared teeth and dazed eyes.

The sight struck me harder than I expected. A sudden spear of sadness through my chest. I pressed a hand there, like I might physically feel a wound forming. Inevitably I thought of Ash, then in tow, Kane. I write their names as such to keep our bubble of turmoil private. And should anyone have access to this, just know that you are privy to very expensive secrets as Christopher ‘Ash’ Valen grew up to be a well-established man in Devil’s Bay and Kieran ‘Kane’ Lazarus became the Demon.

As for me, you can guess. Marisa ‘Sara’ Wren. I thought that if I could hide the past me, then Sara could be a new version.

It was a massive failure.

Still, the name served purpose.

That night, I walked into my townhome perched myself on the windowsill, and peered through the glass warped by age, fairly certain the townhouse had likely been haunted. At that point, I had long grown accustomed to being haunted and nothing seemed to make me afraid. My phone rang loudly beside me. Daisy—who I hadn’t spoken to in months—was calling. She existed in constant oscillation between cheer and delusion. She pursued our friendship to no end until I had given in when we first arrived at Archmouth.

“Hello?” I answered, tucking one leg beneath me.