Chapter 35
Haiyden
The road is too long. Too straight.
It stretches on, endless—each mile a reminder of where I’m headed, even when I pretend to forget.
My fingers grip the steering wheel so tightly my bones ache, muscles screaming with every turn.
The tension in my jaw. The tightness in my chest.
It’s like I’m suffocating under the weight of something I can’t outrun.
The trees blur together as we pass them, a distorted mess of green and brown, pulling me back to the first time I drove down this road.
Back when things were different. When I was different.
Calla sits beside me, her silence loud. I can feel her watching me. Waiting.
I’ve scared her.
I can see it in the way she stiffens when she thinks I’m not looking. She wants to ask—but she’s afraid to push.
I’m afraid to let her .
I shouldn’t be doing this. Shouldn’t be dragging her into it. Dragging myself back into it.
I spent months burying it, pretending it didn’t exist. And now I’m unearthing everything I swore I’d leave behind.
The closer we get, the harder it is to breathe. Pressure builds in my chest, almost suffocating.
Calla shifts beside me. Inhales—like she’s about to speak.
But I can’t let her.
I can’t let this become real.
Not yet.
“Just—”
The word catches in my throat. I can’t look at her.
When I finally force it out, my voice is rough.
“Just wait.”
When I spot the small break in the trees, I pull off the road, tires skidding slightly over packed snow. The spot is unmarked, indistinguishable from the miles of forest surrounding it—but I know exactly where we are.
My hand tightens around the key, gripping it like a lifeline before I force myself to cut the ignition.
I should restart the car.
I should leave.
But before I can talk myself out of it, I push the door open and step out into the cold. The air bites at my skin, but it doesn’t touch the ice already settled deep in my chest.
There’s nothing here. No sign. No marker. No memorial. Just a stretch of pines, dark and endless, leading to a place I swore I’d never return to .
My feet move before I decide to follow. Over snow-laden roots. Over fallen branches. The body remembers what the mind refuses to.
And before I realize it, I’ve left Calla behind.
It’s like I’m on autopilot.
My pulse hammers. My ears ring.
Everything inside me is screaming— turn around. Run.
The walk used to take ten minutes. Now it stretches endlessly, every step a battle against memories I spent months trying to bury.
Calla follows closely at first.
But then… her steps slow. Hesitation outweighs trust.
I hear it in the careful placement of her feet. In the way she lingers just far enough behind to create space between us.
The woods press in—quiet. Watchful.
And I see it. The tree, tilted a little too far to the right, like it’s bracing against something unseen.
My stomach churns.
I turn right. Then left. Then right again.
The trees part. The lake comes into view. Frozen. Untouched. Perfectly still.
The breath I take feels like it might kill me.
It’s the same. Every part of it. As if time never touched it. As if the world didn’t end here.
I thought maybe it would’ve changed. That the seasons, the months, something would’ve left a mark.
But it’s exactly as we left it.
It was ours. Now it belongs to her.
I don’t know what I expected to feel, walking through these trees again .
Regret, maybe. Anger.
But not this.
Not this unbearable longing—this aching, impossible hope that I’ll step out into the clearing and find her waiting at the shore. Arms crossed. Pretending like she hasn’t been waiting for me all this time.
That I haven’t been keeping her waiting.
I don’t expect the way my stomach hollows out when she isn’t there.
When it’s just… empty.
Still.
The silence is deafening. A quiet that should be peaceful—but isn’t. A quiet that makes the world feel unfinished.
Like something vital has been ripped from it.
Like something vital has been ripped from me .
The ice stretches pale beneath the last dying streaks of sunlight, unbothered by the weight of time.
I reach for Calla’s hand before I think better of it—and the moment I feel her flinch, I curse myself silently.
But I don’t let her go. Instead, I guide her across the small, rocky beach, closer to the lake’s edge.
My boots stop where the ice begins.
I stare at it for a long moment, and I wonder—
If I stepped forward, would it break?
Would I ?
I spent months drowning anyway.
Silently.
Slowly.
I let go of Calla’s hand, mine falling uselessly to my side. The cold bites through my jacket, but it’s nothing compared to the sudden shudder that racks through me—deep in my bones, impossible to shake.
And then I hear it.
Waves, crashing.
Water rushing into my ears.
Pulling me under.
My body locks up, stiff and tight. I fight to keep everything contained. To stop whatever’s breaking free inside me.
I don’t mean to speak. But the words claw their way out—hoarse, foreign, like they’re coming from somewhere outside of me.
“This is the last place she was seen.”
Calla shifts beside me. I know she’s looking at me now, waiting.
But I don’t turn. My gaze stays fixed ahead, pinned to the ice, trying to drown out the voice in my head begging me to step forward.
“My sister.”
The words taste awful. My voice wavers, and the sound of it twists something sharp and awful in my stomach.
They land heavy between us.
They always do.
No matter how many times I say it, it doesn’t feel real. Like maybe if I say it enough, the universe will fix itself. Like she’ll step out of the woods, half-smiling, half-annoyed, like I’m an idiot for ever doubting her.
Like she’ll slip into my apartment with the spare key.
Or crash through the bar doors, rolling her eyes at me like she used to.
Like she was never really gone at all .
I exhale, my hands flexing and unflexing at my sides.
“I looked it up once.” My voice is quieter now. Strained. “What happens when someone goes missing in the woods.”
I shake my head, trying to force the rest out.
“At first, they panic. They walk in circles, fast, because their brain won’t let them stop—won’t let them accept that they’re lost.”
A breath.
“They get exhausted. The cold slows them down, but they don’t feel it yet. Their body starts pulling water from their muscles… their brain. They get dizzy. Disoriented.”
My throat works a swallow.
“Then comes the cold. Hands go numb. Feet stop working. The body tries to protect itself—pulls all the warmth. But—” I drag a hand down my face, exhaling. “—it tricks them. Makes them think they’re warm. They take off their clothes like they’re overheating. Their own body betrays them.”
A beat of silence.
“At the end… people start hallucinating. Talking to people who aren’t there. Seeing things. Crawling into small spaces like…”
I swallow hard.
“Like they’re trying to go home.”
My jaw clenches.
My hands curl into fists, fighting off the wave that feels like it’s about to overtake me.
“Sometimes I wonder if she was calling out for me. If she was talking to me, and I just didn’t hear it.”
A breath.
“She didn’t even deserve it. She didn’t deserve to die like that. ”
My fingers twitch uncontrollably at my sides. I should stop. Shove this moment back where it belongs.
But—
“People always joke about twin telepathy. But no one ever talks about what happens when you lose the other half.”
Beside me, Calla sucks in a breath.
I exhale, dragging a hand down the front of my neck.
“I got this stupid fucking tattoo after she died.” My voice is rough. Scraped raw.
“It was supposed to be a willow leaf.” I scoff, shaking my head. “She always said tattoos should mean something. I thought this would.”
My hands ball into fists.
“But I couldn’t even finish it. Couldn’t—”
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
For a second, I think I’m about to throw up.
Pass out.
Maybe both.
It starts as a pressure behind my ribs—tight, creeping.
Garlic and rosemary flood my senses. The sharp scrape of a knife against a cutting board. The way she’d hum while cooking. The shove when I made fun of her plating techniques. How she could chop an onion without blinking.
It slams into me all at once—
A tsunami crashing over me.
And for a second, I swear I’m losing it.
The way she existed so effortlessly. So loudly. So unapologetically. And then she was just… gone .
I drag in a breath, but it catches. My chest is too tight—like something inside me is collapsing. Like the levee is finally breaking.
I don’t realize my hands are shaking until I shove them into my jacket pockets.
“She—”
My voice breaks. I stop, grit my teeth, and swallow hard.
But it doesn’t help.
My shoulders shudder. My throat locks up. My eyes sting, and before I can stop it, a tear slips down, hot against my cheek.
I jerk a hand up to my face, like I can erase the evidence.
But Calla sees.
I know she sees.
The night she went missing is clearer than ever. The scent of pine. The cool summer air. The excitement. The joke she made about needing a break from it all.
“She was so focused on opening that fucking restaurant.”
My voice shakes—almost a growl now.
“She didn’t know how to… how to live outside of that.”
Anger. Pain. Guilt.
They all hit at once, clawing at me. And I don’t fight them.
A few more tears slip free, and this time, I let them.
I wait for Calla to say something. But she doesn’t. No pity. No useless reassurances. Just quiet. She just stands beside me, letting the quiet breathe.
“What was she like?” Soft. Careful.
I exhale shakily, pressing the heels of my hands into my forehead.
My first instinct is to shut it down. But I need to remember her.
“She always smelled like garlic. ”
The words fall out, and I don’t stop them.
“She had this stupid playlist she used to put on when she cooked. Some mix of punk and jazz that didn’t even make sense.”
I huff a breath, almost laughing. But it’s frayed at the edges.
“She always told me I was a terrible twin because I never let her cut my hair.”
My voice wavers. I force another breath.
“She had this notebook—ideas, recipes, things she wanted to try. She carried it everywhere. Always writing, like she had all the time in the world.”
I should stop. Close it off. Put the walls back up.
“And she just… didn’t.”
Calla watches. Just seeing me—in a way that no one else ever has.
The silence lingers, stretching and taking shape between us.
But a sound cuts through it—Calla’s teeth chattering. I turn my head just in time to see a shiver run through her small frame.
Something inside me locks up. It’s another reminder. Another goddamn sign that I’m not capable of taking care of the people I love.
I force myself to look away.
“Let’s go.”
My voice is final. Like slamming a door. One last nail in the coffin.
I turn, ready to leave it all behind, but out of the corner of my eye, I see Calla hesitate. She takes a slow, tentative step toward me—then stops herself. She holds my gaze for a second longer, then nods.
And this time, she walks in front of me.
Leading me back to the car.
Like she knows I’m the one who’s lost.
The drive back is suffocating. My hands tremble against the steering wheel. I grip it tighter, lock my eyes on the road, hold myself together by a thread.
When I finally pull up in front of her apartment, I don’t let her speak.
“I’ll see you later,” I say. Distant, like I didn’t just tear myself open in front of her.
Her fingers twitch—like she wants to reach for me. Like she wants to say something. But she just nods. Quiet. Understanding.
And she steps out into the cold, shutting the door softly behind her.
I watch her go.
Watch the apartment door swing shut behind her.
Shift the car into drive.
And disappear.