Chapter 7
Belle
The door clicked shut behind him, and the bookstore settled into a quiet that felt engineered rather than natural.
I stayed rooted to the spot where my signature still hovered in the air like a bruise, the pen resting on the counter as if waiting for me to take it back.
Ink glistened along the curve of my name.
The check lay beside it, edges crisp, confidence stamped across every printed number.
I stared at both like they might rearrange themselves if I focused hard enough. Nothing moved. Not the dust in the window light. Not the paper. Not me.
The silence pressed against my ribs. It didn’t hum or settle or breathe.
It hovered, thick and watchful, a presence left behind in his absence.
The store shelves—usually comforting—leaned inward, crowding the space with spines and stories that solved nothing.
The lamps cast soft pools of gold across the floor, but the warmth didn’t reach me. My hands stayed cold.
The contract had weight even after it left the counter.
I felt it in the air, in my chest, in the tight band forming along the back of my throat.
My fingertips brushed the edge of the check, and the paper felt too smooth, too clean, too certain.
My pulse hammered so hard it shook the breath out of me, but my face stayed dry.
Tears required the luxury of belief, and I didn’t have that yet.
I tried to move, but my legs refused. My knees locked. My spine stiffened. My body braced for something I couldn’t name. The world tilted slightly, enough to leave the edges of my vision sharp and bright.
This wasn’t panic. Panic came hot. This felt colder, deeper, like the moment before falling through ice.
The store smelled faintly of old paper and the tea I’d abandoned earlier. A small puddle of it had dried near the register. I stared at the stain as if it belonged to someone else’s day. Someone else’s life.
The clock above the door ticked. Each second sliced the quiet into smaller pieces. Two hours. The number lodged in my mind like a shard of glass.
I inhaled, slow and shaky. My lungs stretched around the silence.
I didn’t cry.
Not yet.
I only stood there, trapped between the signed contract and the life that ended the moment my pen touched the page.
I flipped the sign to CLOSED without looking at it and killed the lights one by one.
Each switch snapped louder than it should have.
I locked the door, checked it twice, then pressed my forehead to the glass for a breath I couldn’t catch.
The street looked washed-out, washed-clean, washed-blank.
Thunder cracked across the sky, sharp enough to rattle the windows. The sound rolled through my bones.
I walked to my car on autopilot. Keys. Door. Engine. The wipers smeared rain across the windshield, and the world blurred into streaks of grey and white. My hands stayed tight around the wheel all the way home.
Inside my apartment, silence greeted me with the same weight as the bookstore. I kicked off my shoes, stepped into the bedroom, and opened a drawer. Stared at folded shirts. Closed the drawer. Opened it again.
Nothing felt right to bring.
Everything felt wrong to leave.
I yanked the drawer fully open this time and started pulling out clothes.
Jeans. Sweaters. A jacket I barely wore.
My hands moved without me—grabbing, folding, shoving them into the suitcase on the bed.
The motions felt mechanical, like someone else moved my arms, and I just watched from somewhere far away.
The second drawer. More clothes. Half of them ended up on the floor. I didn’t bother picking them up.
I crossed to the shelf and froze. My books stared back at me, rows of worn spines, cracked edges, dog-eared pages.
I reached for one, then another. Then another.
Stories I’d read a hundred times. Stories that had held me together since I was a kid.
I stacked them in the suitcase even though I knew it made no sense.
Thunder boomed again. The lights flickered. I kept packing.
My scarf drawer sat half-open. I didn’t remember opening it. My fingers brushed a soft length of fabric—pale blue, frayed at the ends. My mother’s. I lifted it without thinking and laid it on top of the books.
I stepped back and stared at the suitcase.
Half my wardrobe still sat in drawers and on hangers. Most of my life sat on shelves and in boxes—photos, trinkets, birthday cards, receipts from better days. I left all of it.
Six months felt like forever.
And also like nothing.
I paused in the doorway, suitcase half-zipped behind me, the room dim except for the thin strip of streetlight cutting across the floor. My hand lifted on its own. Fingers met the wall beside the frame. Cool paint. A faint ridge where the plaster dipped. I traced it like a goodbye.
My thumb brushed the light switch. I didn’t flip it. Just felt the shape of it under my skin.
People always thought grief was loud. Sometimes it was just quiet subtraction.
My phone buzzed.
I'm here.
I stepped out and pulled the door shut until the latch caught with a soft click. The suitcase handle dug into my palm as I locked the deadbolt. One turn. Then another. My breath held through both.
The key sat in my hand, small and warm. I stared at it too long. If I kept it on my ring, I’d find excuses to come back. Grab a forgotten sweater. Water the plant I’d already killed. Touch the life I’d just agreed to abandon.
I crouched, opened the narrow drawer built into the hall table, and placed the key inside. It landed without a sound. I pushed the drawer closed with my fingertips as gently as if loudness might undo everything.
The hallway smelled faintly of old carpet and someone’s dinner two floors down. Normal things. Safe things. My chest tightened anyway.
I straightened, fixed my grip on the suitcase, and forced myself toward the elevator. Each step felt like I was peeling away something I wouldn’t get back. The elevator doors slid open with a low groan, the metal interior waiting like a mouth.
I stepped inside and didn’t look back.
I set the suitcase against my leg and pulled my phone from my coat. The screen glowed in the dim hallway, bright enough to sting my eyes. I scrolled to the hospital number and pressed call before I could think.
The ring felt too loud in the empty space. I cupped a hand around the phone, as if that could muffle the truth sitting in my throat.
“Belle?” My father’s voice rasped through the speaker. Thin. Fragile in a way he tried to hide.
“I’m here.” I kept my voice low. “Everything’s handled.”
A beat of silence. Long enough for doubt to push at my ribs.
“You sure?” His voice cracked near the end.
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard and kept the sound out of the phone. “You don’t need to worry. I’ve got it under control.”
He cleared his throat, a rough scrape that made something in me twist. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I should’ve—”
“Don’t,” I cut in. My fingers tightened around the phone until they tingled. “Rest. Let them take care of you for a bit.”
“You’ll visit tomorrow?”
“I’ll be busy for a while.” The words scraped on the way out. “But I’ll check in.”
“Oh.” His breath hitched. “All right then.”
I closed my eyes. If I listened any longer, I’d break. “Get some sleep.”
“I didn’t mean for any of this—”
“I know.”
Silence stretched again, softer this time, like he waited for me to promise something I couldn’t offer.
“I’ll talk to you soon,” I whispered.
Before he could answer, I ended the call.
The quiet snapped around me. My knees buckled, and I pressed my back to the wall, the phone dropping into my lap. Heat surged behind my eyes, then spilled over, fast and unchecked. I clutched the suitcase handle, held on tight, and cried until my breaths came ragged and thin.
Gideon filled the lobby, shoulders brushing the dim light, expression carved out of calm certainty. He didn’t look at the tear tracks on my cheeks. His gaze dropped to the suitcase at my side. One slow sweep. An assessment, not a question.
He reached for the handle.
I didn’t move.
I didn’t give permission.
He took it anyway.
The weight left my hand—too suddenly, too easily—and the faint wobble in my knees betrayed something I didn’t want him seeing.
He didn’t comment. He didn’t touch me. He stepped back with the suitcase beside him, leaving enough space between us to pretend this wasn’t happening.
“Ready?”
No.
Not even close.
I nodded.
He turned toward the elevator, and I followed because I had run out of places to stay. My boots thudded softly against the hall carpet, each step dragging behind his steady pace. The elevator doors opened, and we descended without a word.
Outside, the night pressed at my skin. Cold. Damp. Final. Gideon led the way to a black SUV idling at the curb. He lifted the suitcase into the back like it weighed nothing and opened the passenger door for me.
I slid in. The leather smelled new and expensive, the opposite of everything I’d ever owned. He circled to the driver’s side and got in; the cabin shrinking around him.
The town blurred past as soon as he pulled away. Familiar storefronts—the bakery with the crooked awning, the pharmacy with flickering lights, the diner where my father used to take me after school—faded into streaks of color behind the glass.
I watched it all disappear.
The road stretched ahead, long and empty. Streetlights thinned until they vanished. Darkness swallowed the edges of the world. Trees crowded the road in tall, silent rows.
Then the lake appeared.
A vast, endless black mirror beside us, reflecting nothing but faint strips of moonlight. It followed the road like a shadow that refused to fall behind.
The SUV hummed. Tires hissed over wet pavement.
Gideon didn’t speak. He didn’t offer reassurance. Didn’t fill the silence with small talk or apology.
I hated him for that.