Chapter 12
“God… tomorrow’s Monday again,” Nerissa complains.
It’s Sunday night, and the city has fallen into that peculiar silence that settles over big cities, when the lights from the bars reflect off the pavement and people quicken their pace to escape the cold.
She’s had her phone tucked into her pants pocket for the past twenty minutes, as if pressing it against her thigh could erase the words she’s read over and over since Seraphina sent them.
“I can’t keep doing this. It’s over, Nerissa.
I can’t take it anymore.” She didn’t say, “I’m sorry.
” She didn’t offer an explanation either.
It’s the kind of message someone writes when they decide to amputate a part of their body before the infection devours every cell.
“At least I managed to squeeze in some time to see the guys…”
Maeve opens the door to Callum’s apartment with a beer in her hand and an oversized T-shirt from an Irish band slipping off one shoulder. As soon as Nerissa steps inside, she tries to smile.
Clearly, she doesn’t manage it. No matter how much she adores the little couple her brother and her best friend make.
“Damn, you look terrible,” Maeve blurts out bluntly, stepping aside to let her in while watching her closely. “How many hours have you gone without sleep?”
“Not enough to put up with your comments,” Nerissa replies, taking off her coat.
Maeve raises an eyebrow and closes the door.
“Okay. It’s definitely serious.”
Callum Ashcombe appears from the kitchen with two small bottles of beer in his hand.
His expression, already somber, hardens when he sees her.
Three years older than her, he retains the presence of someone accustomed to solving problems with his hands rather than words.
His dark hair is cut very short, and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to his forearms. He always seems ready to get into an argument.
“Weren’t you supposed to be preparing for two surgeries?”
“One of them got canceled,” Nerissa replies.
Her brother watches her with a furrowed brow.
“Could it be that Mrs. Chapman has broken your heart again?”
Nerissa glares at him, but her brother has already sat down on the arm of the sofa, watching her with that mix of concern and frustration she knows so well.
“Don’t start, Callum.”
“Then don’t come in here looking like you’re at a funeral,” he retorts, taking a long swig of his beer.
Maeve steps in before the tension escalates further, placing herself between the two with a conciliatory gesture.
“Stop grumbling, both of you, and sit down already.”
Nerissa drapes her coat over the back of the sofa and sinks into the darkest corner of the living room.
Her brother’s apartment, located in Ancoats, occupies a former factory building converted into a loft.
An open laptop and the remains of Thai food sit on the coffee table.
Everything exudes a domestic normality that, at that moment, only serves to worsen her unease.
Because in her head, she can only imagine Seraphina’s perfect life, as if she were a prize to be taken down from a shelf from time to time.
“Can’t take it anymore? Yeah, right,” she thinks.
Maeve sits down across from her and carefully sets the beer on the table.
“Come on, talk. What happened?”
“I don’t feel like talking right now,” Nerissa mutters, rubbing her eyes wearily.
“Well, I’d say that look means you’re two drinks away from doing something monumentally stupid.”
Callum snorts.
“Too late for that, I’m afraid.”
Nerissa clenches her jaw, feeling irritation rise in her throat.
“Can you please not turn this into one of your five-minute lectures?”
“I can try,” Callum replies, though his tone makes it clear he won’t.
Maeve stretches out a leg and nudges Nerissa’s knee, seeking her gaze.
“What happened?”
It takes Nerissa several seconds to answer.
She pulls her phone out of her pocket, and the screen lights up again with Seraphina’s message.
Those cold, definitive words seem to burn into her retinas.
Maeve reads it over her shoulder, and her expression changes instantly, shifting from curiosity to compassion.
“I see…” she whispers, moving a little closer.
“I’m sure she realized what she has with her husband,” Nerissa explains with a bitter smile. “They must have played the perfect family in some cabin with a fireplace, and she must have realized what’s going on.”
Callum lets out a laugh, almost cruel.
“Well, congratulations to Mrs. Chapman for finally discovering common sense.”
“Shut up,” Nerissa snaps, glaring at him.
“No. I’m sick of this shit, Nerissa,” he replies, setting his beer down on the table. His tone fills the living room like a sharp blow. Maeve closes her eyes for a second, bracing herself for the inevitable collision.
“What exactly did you expect? That one day she’d show up at your doorstep with her bags, saying she’d given up her life of luxury for love? Wake the hell up.”
“You don’t understand a thing,” Nerissa murmurs, feeling the alcohol start to burn in her stomach.
“I understand people like her all too well,” Callum insists. “I’ve seen that kind of story many times.”
Nerissa sits up abruptly on the sofa, making the legs scrape against the floor.
“Don’t talk about Seraphina as if she were just anyone.”
“Then what is she?” Callum spreads his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Because from where I’m standing, she looks like a married woman who calls you when her life is suffocating her and then runs back to her husband every time things get a little complicated.”
Maeve tries to lighten the mood, raising her hands.
“Callum, please…”
“No, let me finish. I’ve spent years watching my sister turn into a shadow because of some executive who can’t decide what the hell she wants.”
Nerissa stands up so quickly she almost loses her balance. She feels her pulse pounding in her temples.
“You have no idea what we go through when we’re together.”
“And what good does that do you if she goes home at dawn?” Callum asks.
Her brother takes another step toward her.
“Look at yourself. You’re a wreck. You barely eat, you barely sleep, and you’re one bad day away from throwing your career away for a woman who’s never had to fight for anything in her life.”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” Nerissa warns.
“Why not? Because she fucks you good?” Callum blurts out without a filter.
Maeve jumps to her feet.
“Callum!”
But the damage is already done. Nerissa feels the blow in full force, a quick, humiliating pain. Because beneath all that rage lies a truth that terrifies her: part of her fears exactly that—being nothing more than the woman Seraphina uses to let off steam.
“Fuck you,” she whispers, her eyes glistening with tears.
Callum shakes his head, visibly shaken despite his tough exterior.
“You know what the worst part is? You weren’t like this. You never chased after anyone. You were always the smartest woman in any room. And now I see you waiting for messages like a lovesick teenager.”
Nerissa looks away. The window reflects her tired face, the dark circles under her eyes, and the wet glint in eyes she hates to feel so vulnerable.
She thinks of Seraphina, of the way their fingers intertwined in the darkness, of the whispered promises that are never kept.
Maeve approaches more carefully, touching her arm gently.
“Please sit down.”
“I don’t need a lecture,” Nerissa replies, though she lets herself be guided back to the sofa.
“No, you need to breathe and have someone tell you the truth with kindness,” Maeve insists, looking her in the eyes. “She loves you. I don’t think she ever pretended with you. But it’s one thing to love someone and quite another to have the courage to destroy the life you’ve spent years building.”
Callum speaks again, almost sadly.
“We grew up watching Mom count out coins to pay the heating bill. You worked your butt off to get into medical school while other people had connections and private schools. You became one of the best surgeons in the country all on your own, through sheer hard work. And now you’re going to let a family like the Chapmans turn you into their shameful secret? ”
Nerissa feels a tight lump in her throat.
“It’s not a shameful secret,” she murmurs.
Callum looks at her and tries to take her hands. But Nerissa pulls them away.
“Then tell me one single thing she’s sacrificed for you.”
The surgeon opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Because there is no answer.
Maeve exhales slowly, running a hand through her hair.
“That’s the problem, honey.”
Nerissa’s jaw trembles for a second before hardening again.
“I won’t let you turn her into a monster,” she says, looking at both of them.
“No one’s saying she is,” Maeve replies. “But maybe she’s a woman who’s too scared to give you what you really need.”
Callum picks up his beer again and takes a long swig.
“And you’re too proud to admit that she’s tearing your life apart.”
Nerissa feels the pressure behind her eyes. A deep, almost physical exhaustion. She’s been in control of everything for years. She never loses control. Never. And yet, all it takes is a message from Seraphina Chapman to leave her gasping for breath as if she’d been shot in the chest.
She runs a hand over her face, exhausted.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Well, you’ll have to at some point,” Callum insists. “Because right now, you’re in love with a fantasy.”
“It’s not a fantasy,” she retorts vehemently.
“Then prove me wrong. Make her leave her husband. Make her choose you in front of the whole world.”
The cruelty of the statement leaves the room frozen. Maeve glares at Callum.
“You’re a heartless bastard.”
“I’m just being realistic, little sister,” he replies with a shrug.
Nerissa stands up, her heart pounding so fast it feels like it’s about to burst out of her chest. For a moment, she’s tempted to grab her phone and call Seraphina. To tell her to come see her. To stop hiding.
But the message is still there.
“It’s over.”
Maeve approaches her.
“I don’t want to see you suffer like this.”
Nerissa laughs without humor, a hollow laugh that echoes through the loft.
“Well, get used to it, because it looks like this is how it’s going to be.”
“Neri…” Maeve tries.
“No,” she interrupts, brushing away the hand her friend tries to place on her shoulder. “Don’t treat me like some pathetic victim. I know exactly what I’ve gotten myself into.”
Callum crosses his arms over his chest, staring at her coldly.
“Then stop acting surprised every time she goes back to her husband.”
The comment is the last straw for Nerissa, and she grabs her coat from the back of the sofa.
“Don’t tell me how I feel ever again.”
Maeve takes a step toward her, concerned.
“Where are you going?”
“Anywhere I don’t have to listen to you reducing my relationship with Seraphina to a fucking class issue,” Nerissa replies bitterly.
“Because it is,” Callum says harshly, refusing to back down. “You still believe that love erases differences. But people like them protect their family name and their status above all else.”
Nerissa stands frozen by the door. For the first time since she arrived, exhaustion gives way to something more dangerous: a clear, silent sadness that chills her to the bone.
“You have no fucking idea what we’re going through,” she tells them before leaving.
Then she slams the door so hard that the pictures in the living room rattle.
On the other side of the door, silence suddenly settles between Maeve and Callum, who look at each other, not quite sure what to say.
As she walks down the building’s stairs with her phone clenched in her pocket and her heart turned to ashes, Nerissa realizes something she’s been avoiding for far too long: Seraphina Chapman may love her, but perhaps she’ll never love her more than she fears losing everything.
And that truth, cold and sharp, cuts deeper than any message ever could.