Scarlett #3
My head falls forward.
More tears slip out.
“I wish you would… just…”
I swallow hard.
Voice a broken whisper. “…come back.”
I laugh again — breathless, destroyed.
“But you already did, didn’t you?”
I touch my swollen lip.
Shiver.
“And I didn’t stop you.”
The alcohol surges through me, making everything softer, darker, more dangerous.
“I want to see you.”
A gasp.
Too honest.
Too drunk.
“I want you to come back.” The last words barely make it past my lips..“Just don’t hate me anymore.”
The beep cuts me off.
Voicemail ended.
Silence fills all the places the alcohol didn’t.
I stare at the phone in my lap, chest heaving, heart cracked open wide enough for him to crawl right back inside.
The locket swings gently against my skin.
And before the fear can catch up to me—Before I can regret any of it—Before I can breathe—My phone lights up.
Unknown Number
1 New Voicemail
My body goes cold.
And then hot.
And then nothing.
My hand hovers over the screen.
Just hovers.
I don’t breathe because breathing feels too loud. Too dangerous. Like it might break something delicate and irretrievable in the air.
1 New Voicemail.
The notification glows at me in the dim light like a pair of eyes staring back.
The room pulses.
The locket on my chest feels heavier than gold—like metal isn’t enough to describe it. It feels like claim. Like evidence. Like proof.
Proof that last night wasn’t a hallucination.
Proof that he was here.
Proof that he heard every drunken confession I just bled into his voicemail.
My thumb shakes as I lift the phone.
My pulse hammers so loudly I feel it in my fingertips.
I swallow hard.
My throat feels raw, like I’d swallowed sand.
The wine churns in my stomach.
This is a bad idea.
This is the worst idea I’ve ever had.
And yet—My thumb presses the notification.
The voicemail opens.
I hit Play.
There’s no greeting. No silence. No hesitation.
He starts speaking immediately.
Low.
Controlled.
Too calm for the words he’s saying.
“I told myself I wasn’t going to pick up.”
The sound of his voice slices straight down my spine.
I grip the sofa cushion to keep myself steady.
“Do you know how hard that is? To ignore you?” My breath catches. “Four years, Scar. Four fucking years I dreamed about you saying my name again.”
My eyes burn.
The living room blurs.
“And you choose now?”
A pause.
Not long.
But sharp.
Thin.
Cutting.
“You choose now, when you’re drunk and broken and pretending you forgot me?” My stomach twists violently. “You didn’t forget me.”
His voice is quieter now.
Darker.
Like he’s closer than he should be.
Like he’s leaning right against the speaker.
“Don’t lie again.”
I suck in a sharp breath.
My hands shake.
“You lied to them.” A heartbeat. “You lied about me.”
The words hit like a slap.
I flinch even though he isn’t here.
“But you didn’t lie in that voicemail.” A tremor rips through me so violently I almost drop the phone. “You still love me.”
I choke on air.
The room tilts.
He lets the silence stretch—
Painful.
Suffocating.
Intimate.
“Say it again.” His voice drops a register. “Say it when you’re sober.” Tears burn hot down my cheeks. “Say it when your lips aren’t shaking.”
A breath—slow, deliberate.
“Say it when you’re not hiding behind Noah’s money and his big fucking house and his lies.”
I press my palm to my forehead, fingers gripping my hair.
He’s right.
He’s right and that terrifies me more than anything.
“You want to know something?”
His voice softens.
Darkens.
Becomes something lethal.
“You weren’t the only one drowning.”
I freeze.
My breath stops.
“I died every fucking day you didn’t come see me.”
A sob punches out of my chest before I can swallow it.
“Every letter you returned…” He laughs, but it sounds like it hurts. “I kept them.” My vision goes black around the edges. “Every one.”
My hand presses to my mouth, trying to hold myself together.
“You think I didn’t know you were lying in court?”
His voice cracks once—just once—like something inside him fractures.
“Scarlett, you’re the worst liar I’ve ever met.” My chest caves. “I watched you break when you said those words.”
A breath.
A soft curse.
“I broke too.”
I shake my head even though he can’t see it.
My tears drip onto the screen.
“You asked me not to hate you.”
My heart stops.
He pauses long enough to make me sick.
“I don’t.”
My knees pull up against my chest slowly, like my body is trying to make itself small enough to disappear.
“I could never hate you.”
A beat.
A breath.
A truth I’m not ready for:
“I’m coming back for you.” Heat prickles down the back of my neck. “Not because of the voicemail.” His voice hardens. “Because I was always going to.”
My pulse slams.
The room spins.
“And next time?” A rough exhale. “You won’t be drunk.” My hand shakes violently. “You’re going to look me in the eyes, sober, awake, aware…” I choke on a breath. “…and say every fucking word again.”
The voicemail ends.
The silence afterward is so heavy it feels alive.
Thick.
Suffocating.
Hot against my skin.
I stare at the phone until the screen goes black.
My heartbeat thunders so loudly I think the neighbours could hear it.
My throat burns.
My body shakes.
My lip throbs where he bit it.
And I realise—There’s no undoing this.
No pretending.
No convincing myself it was a dream.
Kai was here.
Kai touched me.
Kai heard everything I just confessed.
And Kai is coming back.
I don’t save it.
I don’t delete it.
I just stare at the screen like it’s a loaded gun pointed straight at my chest.
My pulse thunders.
My breath fractures.
My whole body feels like it’s made of glass—thin, fragile, trembling hard enough to crack.
I set the phone on the sofa cushion beside me.
My hand stays hovering over it.
I whisper to no one,
to nothing,
to the ghost of him still thick in this house:
“No. No, I shouldn’t—”
But my fingers twitch.
My throat tightens.
My heart drags itself up my ribs like claws.
And before I can stop myself—
I press Play again.
His voice hits harder the second time.
I feel it in my teeth.
In my spine.
In the place under my sternum he’s always owned.
“I told myself I wasn’t going to pick up.”
I suck in a sharp breath.
My free hand claws into the fabric of the sofa.
Hearing him again—
his tone,
his restraint,
his anger wrapped in something hot and feral—
it shakes something loose inside me I’ve kept locked for years.
“Do you know how hard that is? To ignore you?”
My eyes close because I can’t keep them open.
I can’t look at the room while he says these things.
I can’t pretend I’m unaffected.
My head falls back against the cushion.
My lips part around a silent gasp.
“Four years, Scar.”
Pain lances through my chest.
“Four fucking years I dreamed about you saying my name again.”
My chest caves inward.
I hear myself whimper.
A small, broken noise
I try to swallow
but can’t.
The wine turns sour in my throat.
I press a hand to my mouth.
“And you choose now?”
A tear slips down my cheek.
It’s hot.
Sharp.
Shameful.
I gasp around a sob that barely makes it out.
The words that follow—
“You didn’t forget me.”
—stab straight through my ribs.
I curl into myself, hand gripping my hair, knees drawn tight to my chest like I’m trying to protect something inside me he already stole.
The phone shakes in my hand.
I’m shaking too.
“Don’t lie again.”
A sob breaks free.
I clamp a hand over my mouth to muffle it.
My whole body trembles—
with wine,
with fear,
with memory,
with want I do not have the strength to deny.
I’m falling apart so fast I can’t keep up with the pieces.
“You still love me.”
The words land in the middle of my chest like a hammer.
I squeeze my eyes so tightly shut they burn.
Tears streak down my temples.
“Say it again. Say it when you’re sober.”
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t fucking breathe.
My hand shakes so violently the phone almost slips from my fingers.
“I died every fucking day you didn’t come see me.”
A sound leaves me—
not a sob,
not a cry,
something rawer.
Something deeper.
Something like grief twisted into desire.
“Every letter you returned… I kept them.”
A sharp inhale cuts my lungs.
I drag my knees tighter to my chest, folding around the pain, the truth, the goddamn way he says it like he’s pressing his thumb into an open wound.
The sofa fabric soaks my tears.
“You asked me not to hate you.”
My breath stutters painfully.
“I don’t.”
The words destroy me.
Destroy me.
My hand slips from my mouth because I’m shaking too hard to hold it there.
Another sob rips free—
loud,
harsh,
humiliating.
My shoulders shake uncontrollably.
“I could never hate you.”
I turn my face into the sofa cushion, gasping, tears spilling unchecked.
My chest aches so violently it feels like something is splintering.
Breaking.
Giving way.
And then—
“I’m coming back for you.”
A sound escapes me—
a strangled, terrified, desperate moan.
I slam a hand against the sofa, like I can make the world stop spinning if I just ground myself to something solid.
It doesn’t work.
The room tilts.
The words echo inside my skull, ricocheting off every hollow part of me.
“And next time… you’re going to look me in the eyes, sober, awake, aware… and say every fucking word again.”
The message ends.
I break.
I break completely.
I fold forward, forehead hitting my knees, arms wrapped around my shins, sobs tearing through me silent and violent. My breath trembles out of me in shuddering bursts.
I whisper into my knees—
“Why did I call you? Why did I fucking call you?”
The phone screen goes dark again.
I clutch it to my chest like it’s him.
The room feels too small.
Too hot.
Too bright.
Too full of memories I thought I’d buried deep enough to never feel again.
The locket presses into my sternum with every ragged breath.
Mine.
I whisper back—
“I’m not.”
But the words feel weak.
Thin.
Liar.
The tears keep coming, unstoppable.
I am drunk.
I am unraveling.
I am terrified.
And I’ve never wanted him more.