Chapter Twenty Eight
Present Day
The world had a new, flat quality to it. Colors were duller. Sounds were muffled, even food had lost its taste. I moved through my apartment on autopilot, making tea I didn’t drink, straightening pillows that didn’t need it.
The silence was the loudest thing. It wasn’t peaceful; it was an active, humming absence.
I kept waiting for my phone to buzz with a stupid meme from Sloane, or a question about wedding details.
But Sloane was on a beach somewhere, gloriously offline.
The only texts were from my editor, Linda, with a mercifully simple assignment: a 500-word blurb on fall candle trends.
I opened my laptop. The cursor blinked on the blank page, a tiny, relentless metronome. Pumpkin spice, I typed. Cashmere sweater. Crisp autumn air. The words were meaningless shapes. All I could see was the flicker of candlelight from the Cliffside restaurant, reflected in Theo’s eyes.
I slammed the laptop shut. Functioning was going to be harder than I thought.
Instead of working like I should have been, I let my curiosity grow and bloom, It was a slow, insidious poison. I’d sworn off him. Blocked him. Deleted him. But the digital ghost of someone is a tricky thing to bury.
It started with a weak moment, late at night, buried under blankets. A simple, devastating question: Is he in Milan?
I didn’t unblock him. That would feel like a surrender. Instead, I did the cowardly, logical thing. I opened a private browser window—like that made it less of a betrayal—and typed his professional Instagram handle into the search bar.
It loaded. @TheoBennett_Photography.
My heart did a hard, painful squeeze. The first post was from the day before. A stunning, black-and-white shot of the Milan cathedral, its spires cutting into a moody sky. The caption was professional, detached. La bellezza di Milano. On location for the Varelli campaign.
He was there. He’d gone. Of course he had.
I scrolled, my finger trembling on the trackpad.
There were more shots of Milan. A perfectly composed espresso cup.
A model, all sharp cheekbones and vacant eyes, draped in fabric that probably cost more than my car.
It was beautiful work. Cold and flawless.
It was his world, a world of sleek surfaces and perfect light, exactly as he’d said.
A world with no room for anything—or anyone—messy.
Then I saw it. A post from five days ago. The night of the wedding.
It was a photo of the lake at Harrison Falls, taken at dusk. The water was like glass, reflecting the fiery sunset. The composition was perfect, but the focus was soft, almost hazy. It wasn’t a professional shot. It was a feeling.
The caption was a single, ambiguous sentence: The things we leave behind.
My breath hitched. Was it about the venue? The summer? Me?
I closed the browser window so fast it was like I’d been burned. The dark screen reflected my own pale, haunted face back at me. I felt sick. I’d wanted proof that he’d moved on without a second thought, that I was just a blip. Instead, I’d gotten poetry and a haunting, beautiful lie. It was worse.
The knock came just after 7 PM.