Scarlett
Iwake like I’ve been drowning.
A gasp rips out of me before I’m even fully conscious—sharp, desperate, wet—and my hands fly to my mouth because the sound feels too loud, too raw for the dark bedroom.
My chest heaves.
My throat aches.
Tears spill before I understand I’m crying.
Noah doesn’t stir.
Of course he doesn’t.
He sleeps like stone—heavy, unmoving, oblivious to the way I fold in on myself beside him.
I press my forehead into my palms, trying to breathe, trying to piece together the dream that ripped me awake, but it dissolves like smoke… only the feeling remains.
Not fear.
Not grief.
Presence.
Someone in the room.
Someone watching.
Someone close enough that I can still feel the ghost of breath against my skin.
I choke on a shaky inhale and force myself to sit up, pushing the duvet down as quietly as I can. My body feels wrong—too hot, too tight, too aware of every sound in the house.
The bedroom is dim, lit only by the frost-blue glow of the security panel near the door. Noah insisted on the system—full perimeter sensors, motion alarms, cameras feeding to his phone. Safety layered over safety.
And yet I’ve never felt more exposed.
I reach blindly for the glass of water on my nightstand, fingers trembling—and freeze.
There’s something sitting beside the glass.
Folded.
White.
Out of place.
It takes my brain a full three seconds to understand what I’m looking at.
A letter.
My breath stutters.
Noah didn’t put that there.
I didn’t put that there.
My stomach drops so fast I feel nauseous.
Very slowly, as if I’m handling something venomous, I pick it up between shaking fingers.
It’s crisp.
Cold.
Heavy with four years of silence.
My initials are written on the front in handwriting I could recognise blindfolded.
My throat closes.
No.
No, this isn’t—I turn toward Noah automatically, as if he’ll somehow know what to do, or be able to fix the way the room suddenly feels wrong—but he’s dead asleep, sprawled half on my pillow, arm reaching out like he’s searching for me even in dreams.
He doesn’t sense anything.
But I do.
Something in the air.
Something in the walls.
Something on my skin.
I slip out of bed with the kind of care people use when they’re running from a sleeping animal that could wake vicious. My bare feet touch the cold hardwood floor, and a shiver travels up my legs.
The house is too big at night.
Too still.
Noah likes minimalism—clean lines, pale wood, cold marble, black frames, no clutter.
Sterile.
Perfect.
A home designed to never look lived in.
The en suite is the worst of it—floor-to-ceiling white marble veined with silver, chrome fixtures, a rainfall shower that looks like it belongs in a magazine, not a real life.
I slip inside and quietly close the door, turning the lock with a click that echoes in the hollow space.
I flip on the vanity lights.
The brightness hits me hard—exposing swollen eyes, damp lashes, a trembling mouth.
I look like someone who’s been held underwater.
I grip the edge of the vanity with one hand, the letter clutched in the other, and force myself to breathe evenly.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
The bathroom smells faintly of Noah’s cologne—clean citrus, cedar, something sharp. He likes order. Routine. Predictability.
Everything in here is laid out exactly the way he wants it:
His razor aligned with military precision.
His watch on the marble tray.
His cufflinks in a neat little row.
My perfume positioned at an angle that matches the others.
Perfect.
Controlled.
Safe.
So why do I feel like I’m standing in a crime scene?
I look down at the letter again.
My heartbeat spikes so violently I feel it in my fingertips.
It’s the same size as the ones that used to come to the house when he first went inside.
The same weight.
The same paper stock.
I know.
Because I used to hold them.
Before I returned every single one unopened.
I sink onto the closed toilet lid, elbows on my knees, the letter dangling between my shaking hands.
“I didn’t bring this upstairs,” I whisper to the empty room.
The marble doesn’t answer.
“I didn’t…” My voice cracks.“…how did this get here?”
I look at the door again, as if Noah might burst in and explain everything away with logic and calm and rationality, but he stays asleep.
Oblivious.
The silence presses against my skull.
He was here.
The thought slams into me, horrifying and inevitable.
Someone was in the room.
Someone stood beside me.
Someone put this on my nightstand while I slept.
I feel dizzy.
The marble tiles blur for a second before snapping back into focus.
I swallow hard, tasting salt.
My fingers trace the crease of the letter.
Slowly.
Reverently.
Like touching it might detonate something.
Something inside me already has.
The walls feel too close.
The lights too bright.
The house too quiet.
The air too thin.
I drag in a shaking breath—and open the letter.
My hands shake so badly I tear the edge as I unfold it.
The paper is creased from being held too tightly—not neatly folded, not careful.
Like someone gripped it too hard.
Like someone needed it.
The handwriting hits me like a punch to the chest.
Sharp.
Chaotic.
Pressed too deep into the page like the pen was a weapon and the paper deserved it.
I read the first line.
And my breath stops.
Scarlett,
You shouldn’t be reading this.
You shouldn’t have your hands on something that belongs to me.
But you always did like touching things you weren’t supposed to.
You sent this back to the prison four years ago.
Unopened.
Returned to sender like I was some stranger.
You really thought a stamp could stop me?
You really thought closing a door made me disappear?
You’ve always been a terrible liar.
I memorised every envelope you sent back.
Held them.
Counted them.
Stacked them in the corner of a cell and stared at them until the walls bled.
This one—the one you’re holding right now—was the first.
You didn’t even hesitate.
Didn’t even pretend.
They handed it to you.
You saw my name.
And you ran.
I kept writing anyway.
I wrote until my fingers cramped.
Until the skin split.
Until the ink stained so deep I couldn’t wash it off.
And you still sent everything back.
Except now you’re holding it.
Now you’re touching the thing that broke me.
Good.
You should feel it.
You should feel every ounce of the damage you did.
I know where you live.
(Surprised? Don’t be.)
I know what time you come home.
I know how you rub your arms when you’re anxious.
I know how you try not to look over your shoulder even when you feel me there.
You don’t sleep well.
You breathe too fast.
You curl in on yourself like you’re bracing for impact.
You feel me.
You felt me tonight.
You woke up gasping, didn’t you?
Shaking?
Crying?
You always cry when you dream of me.
You’re probably looking around the bathroom right now, trying to convince yourself the house is safe.
It isn’t.
Not from me.
I was there.
Right beside you.
Right where I should’ve been the night you walked away.
You didn’t see me.
But your body did.
It always does.
I didn’t touch you.
(You want to know if I wanted to, don’t you?)
Let’s not pretend.
I wanted to.
I wanted to wake you.
I wanted to hear your breath hitch the way it used to when you’d pretend you weren’t scared of me.
But I didn’t.
Not yet.
You sleep beside a man who doesn’t hear you cry.
Who doesn’t see you unravel.
Who doesn’t notice when you stop breathing for three seconds at a time like your nightmares are swallowing you whole.
He thinks you’re his.
He’s wrong.
You know it.
I know it.
He’s going to learn it.
I’ll be back for you.
Soon.
Don’t bother locking the doors.
You should know better by now.
—Kai
The letter slips from my fingers.
It hits the marble floor with a soft, devastating sound.
I press both hands over my mouth to stop the sob that claws up my throat—but it still escapes, a thin, broken sound that bounces off the cold tiles and back into my bones.
He was here.
He was here.
The walls feel like they’re moving.
The lights blur.
The mirror warps around the edges like heat rising.
I choke on a breath—or a sob—I can’t tell which.
“He was here,” I whisper.
The letter lies at my feet.
The house suddenly feels too big.
Too quiet.
Too unsafe.
I curl forward, elbows braced on my knees, forehead nearly touching the marble floor as the truth hits me like a physical blow:
I didn’t dream him.
I felt him.
I felt him beside me.
And the worst part is—Some part of me feels like I’ve been waiting for him.
The letter Kai left on my nightstand lies on the floor—open, exposed, a wound on marble.
I’m still folded over myself on the tiles, breath caught somewhere between my ribs and my throat, when I notice the envelope lying beside it.
I hadn’t seen it before.
A second envelope.
Older.
Creased.
Soft at the edges like it’s been handled too many times.
My name is written across the front exactly the same way he used to write it when we were kids—not elegant, not neat.
Just mine.
My vision swims.
No.
No, no, no.
He said this was the first letter he ever wrote.
The one I sent back.
I pick it up with a hand that doesn’t feel like mine.
The paper is warm—like it was in someone’s pocket too long.
Someone who was just here.
I turn it over.
The seal is torn.
Not by me.
By him.
The back is ripped jaggedly like he opened it in anger.
Or desperation.
Or both.
I swallow hard, fingertips trembling as I hold it over my lap.
Another piece of folded paper slips out and flutters to the floor.
Smaller.
Different.
Not the same heavy paper he writes on now.
This one looks—God.
It looks four years old.
It looks like a ghost.
I pick it up.
The paper is yellowed at the edges, the folds crisp from years of being unopened, then re-folded, then carried God knows where.
My heartbeat is a steady hammer in my ears.
I open it.
Slowly.
Terrified.
Scarlett,
I don’t know how to start this.