Chapter 7
Callum
The messages had been coming in waves, uneven, frantic, desperate, and every time my phone vibrated, a small knot twisted deeper into my chest. I kept telling myself I wasn’t engaging.
I kept telling myself I was maintaining distance.
But the truth was simpler, and worse: I was reading every word and sometimes even responding, trying to quell her panic.
I shouldn’t have opened the first one. That was the line. I’d crossed it, letting her voice seep back into a life where it no longer belonged.
I can’t breathe. I think he was outside again.
She always seemed to know how to make my stomach lurch with the old, familiar instinct to fix, to help, to step in. It was like she knew exactly which string to pull next.
I know you’re the only one I can trust.
My jaw clenched each time those messages echoed in my head. Trust. Ashley had always wielded that word like a blade disguised as a ribbon, soft, harmless, almost sweet, until the moment you realized you’d been cut.
I tried to talk to the police. They won’t listen. I need YOU to tell me what to do.
I didn’t respond. I told myself that mattered. That silence was a boundary. That not answering was the same as not participating. Maybe I had already responded once, but I could stop. She wasn't my problem anymore.
Please, Callum, I’m shaking.
A photo followed, slightly blurred, slightly too dark. The outline of a figure, maybe. Or maybe a tree. Or maybe a shadow cast by her porch light catching something in the wrong angle. Something that didn’t look like a person but could be described like one if you wanted it badly enough.
My breath tightened as I stared at it, every rational part of me saying This doesn’t look real, while something softer, older, more trained whispered What if it is?
Her next message landed before I could decide which voice to listen to.
He was at my door.
It should have hit me like a punch. It didn’t. That was the problem. There was a numbness creeping in now, right where there should have been certainty. Right where I used to know exactly what I felt.
I can’t stop crying.
I rubbed a hand over my face, pushing my fingers hard against my eyes, trying to ground myself. The longer this went on, the more it felt like being pulled backward in time, like gravity was tilting toward some old version of me I thought I had buried for good.
And she’d been gone for years. Truly gone.
After everything fell apart, after I drew the line and kept drawing it, Ashley finally stepped back.
Like she’d finally understood I wasn’t coming back, that whatever she’d convinced herself was between us wasn’t real, wasn’t mutual, wasn’t something I was ever returning to.
I remember the relief of that absence. The clarity. The space to breathe. The peace of being by myself again, and then the joy of meeting Ginny. The warmth of falling in love with Ginny and starting my life with her. And then, suddenly, without warning… here Ashley was again.
I don’t know why you won’t help me.
The guilt landed in the exact place she knew it would. It always had. The part of me that didn’t want to be responsible for another person’s hurt. The part of me that used to bend just to keep the peace.
It wasn’t fair, how quickly those reflexes came back.
Are you busy?
I could picture her typing it. Hesitant. Or pretending to be. And the worst part was that it didn’t matter whether she meant any of it. The effect was the same.
Please respond.
My phone lit the room again, a glow I didn’t want, didn’t need.
Callum??
I didn’t open it. Didn’t even unlock the phone. I just stared at the notification until it dimmed and left me alone with my own reflection in the black glass.
I hated how familiar this felt.
I hated even more how quickly it had all escalated.
And beneath that, quiet, almost buried under everything else, was the steady knowledge of what this was doing to me. What it could do to Ginny if she ever saw these messages. The idea alone sent a jolt of cold down my spine.
Ginny, who trusted me without hesitation.
Ginny, who leaned into me like I was solid ground.
Ginny, whose soft texts sat unread in my notifications because I couldn’t handle one more tug on my attention while Ashley was unraveling in my pocket.
My chest pulled tight.
I didn’t like the person I became in situations like this. I didn’t like the secretive tilt of my thoughts. The instinct to compartmentalize, to shield her from anything that might hurt her, even if that thing was me.
The weight of the unread messages from Ashley pressed on me like a hand.
But ignoring her didn’t stop the messages.
Not ignoring her didn’t help, either.
There was no version of this where I didn’t end up trapped.
Another vibration buzzed against the tabletop, short, sharp, insistent. I flinched before I could even stop myself.
I’m scared.
Just two words. Small. Simple. Effective.
My mind spun faster, trying to claw its way to some clean, straightforward answer. But there wasn’t one. There was only the messy tangle of what she was saying, what she wanted, what she had always wanted, and the growing suspicion that none of this was what it looked like.
That shadow in the photo. That frantic tone. That sudden resurgence after years of nothing.
Too fast, too convenient, too pointed.
But if, if, there was even the smallest chance she was telling the truth…
I closed my eyes and let out a slow exhale, feeling the tension spread across my shoulders like a bruise.
I didn’t want to be pulled into this again.
I didn’t want to lie to Ginny.
I didn’t want any of it.
But the messages kept coming, and every vibration made my pulse jump, and the old instinct to step in, to help, to shield, to fix, kept prying at the edges of my resolve.
I could have blocked her. The thought crossed my mind more than once. Every time it did, I found a reason not to. What if there really was an emergency? What if this message was the one that mattered?
I told myself I wasn’t involved. I told myself I was staying out of it. I told myself she could handle her own life.
But my phone buzzed again.
And I looked at it.
There is a package outside my door
Oh my god
Please, come.
· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·
We had a reservation that evening, something simple but intentional, something Ginny had been looking forward to all week. She’d mentioned it in passing that morning, her voice bright with that soft eagerness she rarely let herself indulge.
I’d told her I couldn’t wait.
And I’d meant it.
At least, I’d meant it at the time.
But by the time I stepped through the door of our home, the promise of that evening sat heavy in my chest, weighed down by the buzzing in my pocket and the relentless string of notifications I’d kept hidden all day.
Ginny appeared from the bedroom with one earring in, the other dangling from her fingers.
“Oh, good,” she said, smiling as she crossed to me. “You’re home in time.”
She was beautiful, so beautiful. She always looked so radiant.
Guilt hit me so hard it almost staggered me.
“Hey,” I said, and my voice already felt wrong. “I might need to… change our plans.”
She paused, earring halfway to her ear. “Oh. Okay… why?”
The truth pressed against my throat, ugly and inconvenient.
But the lie slid out smoother than I wanted it to.
“Work,” I said. “Something came up. I’m really sorry.”
She blinked, processing. Disappointment flickered across her face before she tucked it away with practiced grace.
“Is it bad?” Her voice was gentle, not wounded, and that somehow only made the guilt sharper.
“It’s just something I have to handle tonight,” I said, avoiding specifics.
She nodded, the movement small but steady. “Alright. We can go another night.”
She didn’t push, didn’t pry, didn’t question why “work” suddenly required secrecy and urgency. She only reached for my hand, gave a warm, grounding squeeze.
“Don’t skip dinner, Callum.”
“I’ll grab something.” I tried to smile. It barely held.
She stepped close enough to kiss my cheek. Warm, easy, trusting.
The kind of trust that made me feel like a thief.
“I’ll be here,” she murmured.
And that was almost enough to make me stay.
Almost.
But my phone buzzed in my pocket, sharp, insistent.
And the spell snapped.
I kissed the top of her head, a quick, cowardly thing, and stepped back.
“I’ll text you,” I promised.
Then I left before the lie could burn holes through my shirt.
· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·
The second I reached my car, I pulled out my phone.
A cascade of messages from Ashley filled the screen.
Something’s wrong
He keeps texting
He’s threatening me
A screenshot of a message: You’ll regret ignoring me.
Followed by an onslaught of messages from Ashley.
Please tell me what to do.
What if the package is from him?
Please answer.
Callum I’m shaking.
Are you coming??
I stared at the screen, jaw clenched so tight that my teeth ached.
This was escalating. Fast. Too fast.
Some part of me recognized the pattern, the frantic, spiraling tone that was a little too perfectly timed, the rhythm of desperation engineered to push me into action.
But even recognizing it didn’t silence the instinct to protect, to intervene, to not be the kind of person who ignores someone in real fear.
And I hated that it worked.
I texted her: I’m on my way. Stay inside. Lock the door.
Then I turned the key.
· · ─ ·?· ─ · ·
Ashley’s building was washed in the kind of cold fluorescent light that made everything look harsher, more fragile. I found her at her door, arms wrapped around herself like she was holding her own ribs together.
The moment she saw me, her face crumpled in relief. Or something like it.
“Callum,” she breathed. “Thank god.”
I tried to keep my voice steady. “Show me.”
She lifted her phone with trembling fingers, holding up a blurry image of a figure, dark, indiscernible, nothing more than a shadow cast by a streetlamp.
“He was right there,” she whispered. “I swear I saw him.”
I stepped past her, scanning the walkway, the stairwell, the lot. Everything was empty. Absolutely nothing out of place.