CHAPTER 28
Us
The house is quiet after Dominic leaves.
The kind of silence that makes every small sound echo louder than it should.
I stand in the kitchen for a moment after the door closes behind him, listening to the faint hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of a car passing somewhere down the street.
Life continues.
Because it always does.
Even when yours feels like it stopped. Earlier, I called Andrew and asked for a few days off. He didn’t really protest.
“I figured you might need it,” he said gently. “You haven’t taken any time since what happened.”
Since Clara.
The words sat heavy between us.
Because the truth is… I didn’t take time off.
I worked, I showed up, I answered emails, pretended everything was normal, pretended the ground under my life hadn’t collapsed and the strange thing about pretending something didn’t happen…
Is that eventually the world agrees with you. If you act like it’s normal long enough, people stop questioning it. Dominic leaves for work not long after. We don’t say much. He kisses my forehead softly before he goes. Like I might shatter if he holds on too tightly.
Then the door closes. And the house becomes still again. I walk upstairs slowly. Dominic’s office door is half open. The room smells faintly like paper and coffee and something familiar that feels like safety.
I sit down at his desk. My fingers slide open the drawer. The diary is exactly where it has always been. Waiting. I take it out. The leather cover is worn from being opened so many times from hands that belong to us. I flip through the pages slowly. Era’s handwriting fills them.
Little pieces of her life. Her love for Dominic. Her hopes. Her spark. Then I reach the first blank page, I pick up the pen and begin to write.
Thursday
Era,
If you’re reading this… it means you found your way back. And if you’re here, then I did what I was meant to do.
You need to take your life back now. Not just for yourself but for him. Dominic needs you. The real you.
I pause for a moment.
I wish I could love him the way you do. I really tried. I tried to feel what you feel. To see him the way you see him.
The pen hesitates before continuing.
But the truth is… I can’t. Because my heart belongs to someone else.
I close my eyes for a moment.
Then write the words.
I’m in love with him.
The confession sits on the page.
Inevitable.
Unavoidable.
And sometimes I imagine a life where things were different. Where I could close my eyes and wake up somewhere else. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere he is mine… and I am his. Somewhere the world never broke us into pieces.
My hand tightens around the pen.
But this life isn’t ours. It never was. And it never will be.
I stare at the page before writing again.
So it’s time for you to come back. It’s time for you to live again. I’ll still be here.
Guarding the parts of you that the world tries to destroy.
I start to close the diary.
Then I stop.
One last truth presses against my chest.
I open the page again.
And there’s something else you need to know.
My hand trembles slightly.
Dominic didn’t do it.
I did.
The room feels colder suddenly.
The night at the restaurant. You remember that moment when Sophie stepped away.
She said she needed the bathroom. She left her drink on the table.
The pen scratches slowly across the paper.
Earlier that day I took Dominic’s sleeping pills from the house. I crushed them.
My breathing grows heavier as the memory returns.
I waited for the moment when no one was looking. When she stood up and walked away. When the table was distracted. When the world wasn’t watching.
The pen presses harder against the page.
And I slipped the powder into her drink. I watched the powder dissolve.
I stare at the ink bleeding into the paper.
I told myself it was just enough to make her sleep. Just enough to make her stop existing in our lives. Just enough to protect us.
My chest rises slowly.
But deep down… I knew what I was doing.
My hand shakes now.
I knew she would drive. I knew she wouldn’t feel right. I knew something terrible could happen.
The confession sits there.
Unforgiving.
I killed Sophie.
Silence fills the room.
Then I write the final lines.
But you already know that. Because you watched me. Because you were always there.
Because you’re me.
I close the diary.
And slide it back into the drawer.
* * *
I sit in Dominic’s office long after the diary disappears back into the drawer.
The house is quiet.
Always.
So fucking.
Quiet.
I hate that word.
My eyes drift slowly toward the mirror across the room. For a moment, I just stare at my reflection. Then I stand and walk closer. And really look. The woman staring back at me looks the same.
Same eyes, same face but something about her is… different.
Because now I can see her.
Sera.
Not as someone separate. Not as someone foreign.
But as a piece of me that was always there.
I lift my hand slowly and touch my hair.
Her hair. The color she chose. The color she claimed.
I walk back to the desk and pull the diary out again.
The pages flip softly beneath my fingers. The handwriting is familiar.
But it isn’t mine. Not exactly. Sera’s confession stares back at me from the page. My lips slowly curl into a smile. Then I tear the page out. The sound of paper ripping echoes softly through the room.
I close the diary.
Walk downstairs while humming. The kitchen light flickers softly above me as I pull open a drawer and grab a match. I hold the page over the sink.
“Sera, Sera, Sera.”
“Tsk tsk. Always the better half.”
Strike the match.
The flame flickers to life.
I tilt my head slightly as I watch the fire catch the corner of the paper. The edges curl first, then the ink darkens. The words twist and disappear as the page slowly turns to ash.
I smile faintly as the flame eats through the confession.
Gone.
Just like that.
My eyes drift upward toward the top of the refrigerator. Right into the small corner no one ever notices. I reach up and pull down a cigarette. No one knows it’s there.
Just me. Sera doesn’t smoke. But I do. What’s the fun in not smoking? That first drag feels too good to give up. I step outside onto the back patio. The evening air is cool against my skin as I light the cigarette. Take a slow drag.
God.
That feels good.
I miss this shit. The smoke curling into my lungs like a slow, quiet exhale the world never lets you take.
People always have something to say about it.
Warnings, lectures, little looks of judgment, but I stopped caring about other people’s opinions a long time ago.
Life burns out one way or another anyway, just like the cigarette between my fingers.
The only difference is whether you enjoy the flame while it’s still lit.
I exhale a thin stream of smoke and watch it disappear into the dark. The glass window beside me catches my reflection.
I stare at it, tilt my head, then I smile. Her choice of clothing. This black top, modest, careful, with that small, polite cut at the neckline.
Boring.
I could’ve sworn I hid this hideous shirt. Buried it somewhere she wouldn’t find it. But of course she did, she always does. My fingers curl into the fabric before I even think about it.
I pull.
Hard.
The sound of it tearing cuts through the quiet, sharp and satisfying, splitting the neckline open until it falls lower, exposing more than it’s meant to. I breathe out slowly, watching myself in the mirror. Something in my reflection shifts.
Or maybe it’s just me.
My head tilts slightly, eyes dragging over every detail. A faint smile touches my lips. “Much better.”
Funny thing is…we all have secrets. I take another drag. Blow the smoke slowly into the air. She was going to die anyway. Do you really think I was just going to let that slide?
I let out a quiet laugh. I hated that bitch Evelyn.
The way she looked at Dominic. The way she touched his arm.
The way she pretended she wasn’t trying to steal something that belonged to me.
You saw it too. Don’t act like you didn’t.
So I befriended her, had drinks with her, laughed at her stupid stories and her “I have cancer, please pray for me” sob story.
And while she wasn’t looking…
I slipped Dominic’s sleeping pills into her drink.
Two.
Maybe five.
Seven?
I shrug.
Honestly… I don’t fucking remember.
I laugh softly.
I just sped up her death.
She deserved it. The cigarette burns between my fingers as I exhale again. It’s crazy to me that Sera did the same thing. But I guess that’s not surprising.
After all…
The three of us are the same person.
Yes, I said three.
Is that confusion or shock on your face?
Hmn. Maybe both.
You hated them too. Don’t pretend you didn’t.
You hated them both. Why does Sophie have to look at him like that, like she’s already pictured herself in my place, like she’s just waiting for him to slip and choose her?
Why does she keep glancing at him across the restaurant like she’s not-so-subtly begging for him to look back?
Okay, were Sera’s actions wrong? Maybe. That’s up for debate. But we both know Sophie had her eyes on him. Sera just ended the problem before she turned into another Evelyn.
So if you’re asking me… she did what had to be done. And Evelyn. Sweet, fragile Evelyn with her soft voice and tragic little story. The kind of woman people call “good.” The kind who probably had a straight shot to heaven.
Until she snaked her way into my marriage. So whatever golden ticket she thought she had? Torn.
I’ll see that bitch in hell.
And Lucien is so far above her league.
I couldn’t control everything Sera was doing, but I felt it. Every second of it. The pull. The heat. The way she looked at him like he was something to be devoured.
Jesus.
I can’t believe she fell for someone that fast.
Then again… who am I kidding?
I fell for Dom the same night I met him.
Played the part, too. Pretended I was saving myself for marriage.
Oh, he ate that right up. I lasted, what, five days?
Maybe less. Men are so easy. Say the right things, look at them the right way, and they’ll build a fantasy around you all on their own.
Sera did have good taste, though. Lucien is dangerously easy to want.
I wonder if he’ll notice the difference between Sera and I.
That’s what I’m curious about.
I stare at my reflection a second too long.
And for just a flicker—
my face shifts.
Not much. Just enough. A tilt of the mouth I didn’t make. A look in my eyes that doesn’t belong to me and then it’s gone. The cigarette burns slowly between my fingers until the heat reaches the filter. I flick it away.
Those fuckers deserved it.
The ember arcs through the dark and dies against the stone below. Then I smile. Because here’s the truth no one likes to admit. Everyone has a secret. Everyone has something they’ve buried deep enough to pretend it never happened. Something they tell themselves they had no choice about.
Sera had one.
I had one.
And someday…
It'll be your turn to make one too. Maybe that’s the real truth about monsters. They aren’t strangers. They don’t live in haunted houses or crawl out of the shadows. They live in us. In the quiet corners of our minds.
In the things we’re willing to do for love. In the things we’re willing to destroy to protect what belongs to us. In the lies we tell ourselves so we can still sleep at night. I lean a little closer to the window, the glass catching my reflection.
Staring at us.
Do you remember now?
You weren’t just watching us, you were inside the story the whole time. You’ve always been there. Lurking in the background. Watching everything unfold. Feeling what we felt, loving who we loved, hating who we hated.
Don’t look so innocent now, you were right there with us.
I pick up and grind the cigarette into the rock beneath my shoe until the last spark disappears. For a moment the night is completely still. Then I look back at the reflection in the glass.
Sera had her turn.
I had mine.
I let out a quiet breath.
“I’m done playing Noah, Allie.” I murmur with a faint smile.
About fucking time you come out too.