Scarlett #2
You taste the same.
A shiver rips through me so violently I grip the counter until my knuckles whiten.
I want to throw it away.
I want to smash it.
I want to burn the whole fucking house down.
But instead—I pick it up.
The chain slides across my fingers like silk dipped in sin.
My breath shakes.
I clasp it around my neck.
The weight of it settles against my collarbones, cold enough to make my skin pebble.
Something shifts behind me.
A floorboard creaks.
My breath catches in my throat like a trapped animal.
I turn—slow, terrified, hopeful—and see only empty air.
Empty room.
Quiet house.
But my heart doesn’t slow down.
Because it doesn’t feel empty.
Not anymore.
And the truth hits me like a punch to the sternum:
If last night wasn’t a dream…
If he was actually here…
If he walked through my house like it already belonged to him…
Then he could come back.
At any moment.
For me.
And the worst part?
The part that curdles my stomach and heats my skin and knots something ugly and desperate inside my chest?
I don’t know if I want to run—or wait for him.
I don’t remember moving.
One second I’m staring at the woods like they’re breathing.
The next—I’m wrenching open the cabinet beside the fridge, hand shaking as I grab the first bottle of wine I see. A deep red. Something expensive.
Something Noah buys to impress dinner guests and pretend we’re the kind of couple who discuss notes of oak and berry instead of screaming at each other behind locked doors.
My fingers can barely grip the opener.
It slips.
Clatters.
I say, “Fuck,” too loudly.
The word cracks through the silence.
Bounces off the marble.
Sounds like it belongs to someone feral.
I try again, digging the screw into the cork with far too much force, breath uneven, jaw clenched. When it finally gives, the sudden pop makes me jump hard enough that I nearly drop the bottle.
My hands are trembling so badly the wine splashes when I pour it—dark red staining the inside of the glass like fresh blood.
I down half of it in one swallow.
It burns.
Hot.
Deep.
Unforgiving.
It settles like a bruise behind my ribs.
The second half goes quickly after.
I pour another.
And another.
By the third, the room stops spinning from the drug and starts spinning from the alcohol instead. A different kind of dizzy. A different kind of dangerous.
A controllable one.
My breathing slows.
My skin warms.
My limbs loosen.
The fear doesn’t go away.
It just… changes shape.
Becomes sharper.
Feral.
Like a cornered animal with nowhere left to run.
I grab my phone and flick through my playlists until I find something loud enough to drown out my own heartbeat. Something with drums, something with teeth, something that tastes like rebellion and regret.
The song hits like a punch:
“Control” — Halsey.
I’ve always hated how much I relate to it.
The opening chords vibrate through the kitchen, rattling the empty glasses, humming through the floorboards. The wine in my hand swirls. My pulse syncs to the beat, sharp and erratic.
I lift the glass to my lips again.
Swallow.
Hard.
The warmth climbs my neck, loosening something inside me I’ve held too tight for too long. My bare feet slide against the cool marble, and I move without meaning to—first a shift of my hip, then a slow sway, then a full step back.
My pulse hammers against my throat.
I dance.
Not gracefully.
Not seductively.
Not like the elegant fiancée of a wealthy man.
I dance like a woman cracking open.
My robe slips off one shoulder again, but I don’t fix it. The song pulses through my veins, and I move faster, heavier, spinning sloppily on the tile like I’m trying to shake something out of my bones.
Maybe I am.
The wine sloshes over the edge of the glass at one turn, splattering onto the counter, onto my wrist, onto the floor. I laugh—a harsh, breathy sound that doesn’t sound like me at all.
“Fuck,” I mutter, wiping my hand on my thigh before lifting the glass again.
I take another swallow.
And another.
My hair sticks to my forehead as I move, hips snapping in sharp broken motions, heart pounding too hard. The kitchen blurs to warm gold and deep shadow as I spin in place, nearly losing my balance on one turn but catching myself on the island.
My reflection stares back at me in the glossy cabinet finish.
Eyes too wide.
Pupils too large.
Lip still swollen from—
No.
A dream.
A fucking dream.
I drain the glass and pour more.
And then—I slam the bottle down too hard.
Wine splatters across the marble.
Across my hands.
Across the locket hanging against my skin.
Mine.
I choke on a breath.
My fingers curl around the pendant like it’s burning me.
“I’m not yours,” I snap at nothing, at air, at shadows, at the ghost of his voice still clinging to the inside of my skull.
The music kicks harder.
I tip back half the glass.
“I’m not—I’m not—no—”
My voice breaks.
My chest heaves.
I stumble backward from the counter, pressing a hand to my forehead.
My vision swims.
The room pulses.
The locket feels like a noose.
“God, what the fuck is wrong with me?” I whisper, voice shaking. “It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t—”
But the song dips into the chorus, and something in me shatters like glass under a boot.
I scream.
Right there in the kitchen, I scream into the empty air—raw, furious, terrified. The kind of scream that rips its way out of your body because holding it in would kill you faster.
My knees buckle.
I catch myself on the fridge handle, breathing ragged breaths that scrape my throat raw.
Tears blur my vision—but they don’t fall.
I won’t let them.
Instead, I grab the bottle again, take a huge swallow straight from it, and slam it onto the table.
“Fuck you,” I whisper into the room.
Into the silence.
Into the memory of his breath on my skin.
“And fuck you too, Noah.”
The house hums around me—quiet, heavy, tense.
Like something in the walls heard me.
Like something is listening.
The music thunders.
My pulse thunders harder.
I spin again, reckless, drunk, angry, vibrating like a fault line about to give.
But the locket keeps striking my chest with every movement—cold, hard, insistent.
A reminder.
A brand.
A claim.
By the time the song ends, I’m breathless.
Sweating.
Shaking.
And the bottle is almost empty.
I press my hands to the counter again, leaning forward, hair falling into my face, breath uneven.
I whisper it to the marble.
A truth I don’t want to own.
“I think he was here,” I breathe.
“I think he touched me.”
“I think I wanted him to.”
The silence answers.
Not empty.
Not comforting.
Just waiting.
By the time I make it to the living room, the bottle is empty and my vision is wearing a soft, blurry halo around every light.
My skin feels too warm.
My pulse too fast.
My breath too loud.
The locket keeps hitting my chest when I move — a cold reminder with every step.
I drop onto the sofa, hair sticking to my face, my robe slipping open far too low for decency, and something inside me unravels just enough that the alcohol pours through the cracks like gasoline.
I stare at my phone on the coffee table.
The smart thing would be to put it face-down.
Turn it off.
Throw it across the room.
The stupid thing — the thing my drunk, shattered, furious body wants — is to pick it up.
My hand shakes as I swipe the screen.
I don’t have his number saved, obviously.
That would be insane.
Except I do.
Not his name.
Not anything obvious.
Just a contact buried under an old nickname I told myself I forgot.
“Summer.”
The nickname he gave me the night we swam in the lake at midnight, shivering in the dark, laughing so hard I thought my ribs would break.
My thumb hovers over it.
“Don’t do this,” I whisper to myself.
I tap it.
The phone rings.
Once.
Twice.
Three—
Voicemail.
His voice hits me like a brick to the sternum.
“Leave it.”
That’s all he recorded.
Cold.
Short.
Unforgiving.
My throat tightens.
The beep echoes like a gunshot.
And the truth comes out of my mouth before I can stop it.
“You came back.”
The words come out broken.
Raw.
Wet with half-swallowed tears and too much wine.
I close my eyes, head falling back against the sofa, breath shaking.
“I know it was you.”
The room sways.
The locket presses into my skin.
“I know I didn’t imagine you.”
I drag my fingers down my face.
“God, Kai… I remember you touching me.”
My heart slams painfully against my ribs.
“I remember your voice. I remember your smell. I remember your hands on my face like you never left.”
My voice cracks.
The alcohol burns hotter.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” My breath shakes. “That I wanted it to be real.”
I press a shaking hand to my mouth.
“I wanted it to be you.”
My pulse stutters.
The room feels too small.
Too loud.
Too silent.
“I’ve spent four years pretending I forgot you when all I did was fucking drown in you.”
The words spill before I can stop them.
“I loved you so much it felt like dying.”
My chest caves.
I laugh—a wet, bitter sound.
“No. No, that’s a lie.”
A breath.
Broken.
“I still love you.”
Silence swallows the room whole.
I curl my knees up, robe falling open even more, but I don’t care. I’m shaking too hard to fix it. Wine-soaked truth drips off my tongue like sin.
“I never told you why I did it.”
The world edges sideways.
My vision swims.
“I lied in that courtroom because I thought it would save you.”
A tear breaks loose.
I don’t wipe it away.
“I thought if I said what they wanted, they would be kinder to you.” A bitter laugh. “I thought it would shorten your sentence.”
My voice drops to a whispered confession. “I thought I was saving your life.”
A beat.
A breath.
My throat tightens until it hurts.
“But I ruined yours instead.”
The living room shifts out of focus again—sofa flickering, lights bending, shadows stretching.
I press the phone harder to my cheek, eyes half-closed, breath hot and heavy.
“I miss you.”
Barely sound.
Barely breath.
“God, I miss you.”