Chapter 2
Chapter two
Our house sits on the outskirts of Wattlewood Ridge. All sharp lines, pristine, and emotionally sterile. It looks like it belongs in a magazine spread titled, “ Minimalism Meets Masculinity.”
Everything has its place, and there is no room for mess.
There are slate benchtops, and polished floors that echo when I walk barefoot.
Walls in tasteful shades of grey, void of warmth or memory.
Even the artwork is of black-and-white landscapes with no names.
It’s all just placeholders for a life that never turned up.
I keep trying to soften it with a candle here, a thrifted bookcase there, and Jerry—the plant I talk to while I make my morning coffee.
Instead, they perch like guests who never unpacked.
It doesn’t smell like home. It smells like cedar candles and ambition—or maybe it's hope?
Mostly, it sounds like managed quiet with no room for mess, chaos, or me.
I used to call this stability. A shared key, Sunday dinners, the promise that four walls and a routine were the same as love. I told myself if I rounded the edges long enough, the house would meet me halfway and become ours. But the rooms only echo what could have been.
The prints continue to keep their horizons to themselves, and every gentle thing I carried in look temporary, as if waiting for the permission I never got.
My phone buzzes on the counter next to me.
MARLEY: Early reviews are rolling in.
TESS: Read two good ones, one neutral then close the app.
Opening one of the reviewing apps, I bring up The Year Before You. Straight away I notice the 4.2 star rating.
‘Okay, this isn’t too bad,’ I tell myself.
Scrolling down to the community reviews section I start reading.
I press my palm to the counter, letting the words steady me. It is terrifying yet also exhilarating. I should have just stopped there, but I couldn't help myself.
Okay, ouch. I close the app before I can dive further into the rabbit hole; just as a message comes through.
JUSTIN: Working late. Just leave dinner in the fridge.
‘Oh shit, dinner.’
The sauce! Garlic is burning at the edges. I start stirring, hoping to save it, while the words of strangers still warm my chest, but the silence in my own house is louder than all of them.
‘I should really start over.’
The front door clicks open, and the jangle of keys dropping into the ceramic bowl, sounds by the entryway.
The familiar scrape, a sound I used to lean towards.
It shouldn’t unsettle me the way it does now…
but it does. My breath stutters with that tiny instinctive flinch I’m tired of pretending I don’t feel.
‘Hey,’ Justin sets his phone on the counter without looking at me.
‘Hey.’ I force a smile. ‘I made dinner.’
‘Smells good.’ He’s being generous. Because honestly, it smells like shit.
Regardless, I plate the food in silence and join him at the table. He is already scrolling through something on his phone.
‘How was work?’ I ask, trying to sound casual.
‘Yeah,’ he mutters, not taking his eyes off his phone. ‘It was fine.’
I wait, but there is no follow-up, no details. ‘Did the marketing pitch go okay?’ I try again.
He shrugs. ‘Um… yeah.’
‘You’ve been working on that for weeks. I bet you’re glad it’s over.’
‘Hmm? Yeah.’ Still completely disinterested in what I have to say.
The silence spreads. It is thicker this time, heavier. I pick at my food, peering up through my lashes. ‘Justin, what’s going on?’
He doesn’t look at me, keeping his eyes on his phone. ‘Nothing.’
Still scrolling.
‘Don’t do that,’ I breathe. ‘You’ve barely looked at me since you walked in the door.’
‘Jesus, Lilah.’ He drops his fork with a clatter. ‘Can we just eat?’
I jump at the sharpness to his voice. ‘What did I do wrong?’
He pushes back his chair abruptly and stands, pacing to the other side of the room. ‘Nothing,’ he sighs, hands on his hips. ‘It’s just, everything’s different now.’
I rise from my chair along with my voice, panic building in my chest. ‘What are you talking about? Because from where I’m standing, I’m the only one trying to keep this from falling apart.’
He turns sharply. ‘You’re always in your head. Always writing or working or daydreaming.’ He lets out a dramatic huff. ‘I come home, and you’re already in another world. I feel like I don’t even exist in your life anymore unless I interrupt it.’
I flinch at his words. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No! I am trying to make something of myself. People like my book Justin, it has real potential. Why can’t you be happy for me?’
Justin scoffs. ‘It’s a romance novel, Lilah. It’s not exactly life-changing stuff.’
My mouth falls open. ‘Wow.’
‘I’m just being honest,’ he shrugs like he hasn’t just gutted me. ‘You talk about it like it’s this huge achievement, but it’s not stable. It’s not real. It’s a hobby you’re trying to turn into a career, and I’m the one who’s supposed to keep everything else together while you chase fairy tales.’
Chase fairy tales? My voice trembling, I ask, ‘You think this is a fairytale?’
‘I think it’s self-indulgent,’ he snaps. ‘You used to be grounded. Lately, it’s like you’d rather live in your make-believe world than deal with anything real.’
My hands shake. ‘This is real to me. My writing, my characters, and my readers matter and the fact that you can’t see that? I don’t… Do you think it’s beneath you?’
He laughs coldly. ‘Beneath me? No, Lilah. I think it’s beneath you.’
Shock—pure and devastating—ripples through me at his words.
I flinch as he takes a step closer, as if to make whatever he is about to say land. ‘You were so smart once Lilah. Now you’re out here writing fantasy for strangers on the internet like it’s going to change your life. Like any of it matters.’
It’s romance not fantasy, I almost say, but he beats me to it.
‘Your “characters” aren’t real. Your readers don’t know you.
And all this,’ he gestures over to my laptop, ‘it’s just some delusion you built because reality didn’t look the way you wanted it to.
’ Then, he adds. ‘You’re not some brilliant writer.
You’re a girl who got hurt and decided to hide behind fiction instead of growing up. ’
My throat feels thick and dry. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to scream or sob. His words didn’t just land, they left bruises.
I stand there, silent. While every version of myself he tried to flatten, flickers through my mind. The girl who once believed she was too much, the woman who learned to shrink just to keep the peace, and the writer who finally found her voice on a blank page.
He doesn’t understand any of it. Not the late nights, not the joy or the ache of crafting something from nothing and watching it resonate with someone. To him, I am living in a fantasy world.
But isn’t it real? The girl who wrote her way through constant heartbreak, through grief, and everything he never saw? She is real. And maybe for the first time, I finally saw her, too.
Something hardens in me, not out of anger, just clarity. This isn’t love, this is survival.
Justin doesn't sit back down. He leans against the wall like he is already halfway out the door, arms crossed, emotionally checked out. ‘This isn’t working,’ he confesses, flatly. ‘I’m not doing this anymore. It’s exhausting.’
I realise I am not tired, not like he is. I’m not done. I am just beginning. I stare at him. ‘What’s exhausting?’
‘This, us. You're acting like I’m the villain here for wanting something real.’
My jaw clenched. ‘So, your version of “real” is me giving up everything I care about to fit into your schedule?’
His laugh is sharp and condescending. ‘You write fiction under a fake name and serve coffee for a living. Let’s not pretend like you’re too busy for real life.’
My heart drops. ‘You’ve never said that before.’
‘I’ve never had the balls to be honest,’ he shoots back. ‘But if we are being honest, I want a partner who's grounded. Not someone who plays make-believe and writes about fictional men because she’s too scared to face real intimacy.’
The room tilts, the floor no longer feeling steady. ‘I guess that explains why you didn't come to the release party,’ my voice cracks. ‘You couldn’t show up to one thing that matters to me?’
‘Oh, come on,’ he scoffs. ‘It’s not like you needed me. You have your little fan club. The adoring Marley and Tess. I would’ve just been another background prop.’
‘That doesn’t matter, being a supportive partner is about showing up.’ The words I need feel buried deep. ‘I never asked you to be in the background,’ I finally say. ‘I asked you to be beside me.’
‘And I never asked to be second to a book.’
That is it.
The last stone was thrown, the one that cracked something in me for good.
I won’t beg him to stay, and I am not going to chase. Not this time. Letting him walk away feels like the first real choice I’ve made in months.
‘Stay here for a couple of days if you want. I’m going to the city.’ He pauses at the door and turns just enough to twist the knife. ‘I hope you get whatever fairytale you’re looking for, Lilah. Just don’t call me when it crashes down around you.’
The door clicks shut like the last line of a chapter.
I don’t move for a while. I am just alone in a house that used to hold a future.
The house is quiet in that heavy way it gets after a storm.
Not peaceful, just the wreckage. I sit on the floor, back against the kitchen cupboards, letting the silence settle on my skin like dust. I replay the words again and a memory tugs.
‘I have heard that before,’ I whisper.
Chapter Three.
Jumping up, I run over to the half empty bookshelf and pull out the ARC copy of my book.
Covered in sticky notes and dog-eared, my fingers shake as I flip through until I reach the breakup scene.
I read the line, “I hope you get whatever fairytale you’re looking for.
Just don’t call me when it crashes down around you. ”
My breath catches.
I re-read it. It’s like watching my life through someone else’s eyes and realising I’d written the script. I hadn’t just predicted this moment, I lived it. Before it ever happened. Had he actually read my book?
Journal Entry - Monday, 4th of August
Maybe I should’ve seen it coming, how every “it’s fine” is a goodbye in disguise. I didn’t need fireworks. I just wanted him to say he saw me, that my dreams weren't too big for him to hold.
Am I living in a fantasy?
Am I wasting time pursuing writing?
Should I just give up?
Call him back and tell him I want to make it work?
xx