Chapter Six
Dahlia
With a loud groan, I grab my head, as if holding it together will stop it from exploding.
My eyes slam shut, but the weak morning sun still presses against my lids, unrelenting.
The sleeping bag is tangled around my legs like a boa constrictor, and I wince as I finally manage to kick it off, shivering as the chilly air hits me.
I roll onto my hands and knees, the world tilting unpleasantly as I push myself upright. Blinking blearily, I take in the firepit. Twisted, charred metal frames and smoldering ash are all that remain of last night’s fire—that and this wicked hangover.
My body aches from sleeping on the hard ground, and my mouth feels like I ate an entire bag of cotton balls. The mere thought of eating anything sends my stomach churning dangerously.
Shading my eyes against the watery light, I take in the wreckage around me—a broken Adirondack chair, a melted tub of ice cream, and a very empty bottle of tequila littering the ground.
With a groan, I scrub my hands over my face, then rake them back through my hair to twist it into a knot. My fingers snag on something, and I pull free the missing ice cream spoon tangled in my curls. Of course.
Shaking my head, I grab the empty container and tequila bottle. On my way inside, a whiff of last night’s mint chocolate chip wafts up from the melted tub. My stomach clenches hard, and I barely make it to the bushes before emptying its contents.
Still gagging slightly, I head for the guest bath once again. Rummaging under the sink, I pull out a spare toothbrush and the extra toiletries I keep there. The spicy cinnamon of the toothpaste is a welcome change, chasing away the lingering taste of mint, tequila, and regret.
Stepping into the shower, I let out a sigh at the luxury of indoor plumbing. The steaming water cascades down my back, soothing the tight muscles from sleeping outside on the hard ground—or okay, fine, from passing out.
My thoughts wander as the heat works its magic.
This is worlds away from the buckets we used to bathe in the Himalayas.
There, the water was ice-cold, a shock to the system no matter how much you braced yourself.
Here, it feels indulgent, almost too easy—just a twist of a knob and out it comes. So simple, yet so unappreciated.
I wash the sticky ice cream residue from my hair and take the time to shave.
The sweet-smelling steam wraps around me, and for a moment, I’m tempted to stay here.
To hide in the warmth of the shower, letting the return to indoor plumbing and indulgent body products shield me from the mess waiting beyond the curtain.
But something stronger pulls me forward. I’ve wasted enough time sacrificing for Ben and his success. That’s over now. From here on out, my needs and wants come first. I’m going to make myself the priority for a change.
With one last deep breath of the humid air scented with flowery body wash, I shut off the water and head out to face my new life, starting with unpacking my bags and doing laundry.
While I wait for the washer and dryer to run their cycles, I stand in the kitchen and choke down some tea and toast, missing the sweet chai of India.
Rain begins to fall, soft and steady, as I watch out the kitchen window.
My gaze drifts to the edge of the woods, my eyes scanning the shadows between the trees.
I don’t know what I’m expecting to see—maybe a flash of silver.
Maybe nothing. But the pull is still there, tugging at me, refusing to let go.
The buzzing of the dryer jolts me back to the present.
I fold my clothes and carry them down the hall, but my steps falter halfway to the bedroom I shared with Ben.
The idea of tucking my clothes away in that closet, in this space we filled together, feels like admitting this is still my life. But it’s not. It can’t be. Not anymore.
Although I don’t want to settle back into this house that holds the ghost of my relationship with Ben, I also don’t know where else to go.
All of my friends are “our” friends. As I run through the list of people I could call to cry to, help me move, or let me crash on their couch for a few nights, the realization hits me—I don’t have anyone.
The friends I had from college drifted away as I poured all my energy into Ben.
And now I can’t help but wonder if that was intentional on his part.
I was the only child of a single mom, lost to our rare hereditary disease.
It had been so easy for him to become my entire world.
And now that he’s gone, I really am alone.
The thought brings me to a standstill. For a moment, I consider finding another bottle or burning something else, but instead, I let the jetlag layered over a hangover pull me toward the guest room.
Dropping the basket to the floor to deal with later, I curl up on the bed, set my phone to silent and escape into the comforting embrace of sleep.
When I wake, the sun is setting, painting the room in muted hues.
I grope for my phone on the side table, squinting at the bright backlight cutting through the gloom of dusk.
I’m shocked at not just how long I slept, but the flood of notifications of missed calls, voicemails, and text messages from Ben.
Not ready to hear his voice, I exhale a heavy sigh and swipe to open the messages instead.
They’re exactly what I expect—excuses and lies.
Not a heartfelt apology in sight. My chest tightens, but I refuse to let him get to me.
I lock the screen and head back to the kitchen, a loud growl from my stomach reminding me the toast I ate earlier was a lifetime ago.
I pop a frozen pizza into the oven and lean against the counter, pulling my phone out of my pocket to start searching for another place to live while I wait. Another notification pops up, not from Ben, but from the same airline I just flew home on.
I frown down at the screen, confusion prickling at the edges of my tired mind.
Time to check in for your flight tomorrow.
A flight? My stomach flips as I try to piece it together. What flight?
Opening the notification, I see an odd error.
I think about calling the airline but quickly decide against spending hours on the phone.
Instead, I switch to my banking app where I confirm there’s no glitch on the airline’s end.
Last night, in a tequila-fueled haze, I bought a nonrefundable, one-way ticket back to India.
And it leaves in less than twenty-four hours.
Well, this is interesting. I tell myself I must have bought it because I need to keep searching for that elusive plant. That I’m not entertaining the idea of flying back around the world because of the pull I still feel or the thought of catching another glimpse of those silver eyes.
No, this is about survival. My survival. I need that flower.
But as I stare down at my phone, another question surfaces, sharper and harder to ignore. Am I really running toward something? Or am I just running away from the emptiness here?
I could stay. Piece my life back together. Figure out where I’m going academically. Sell the house. Mourn the loss of my relationship. Slowly tease my life apart from Ben’s. The practical choice stretches before me, logical and predictable.
The kind of choice Ben’s ‘Dolly’ would make.
He loved to call me Dolly Mild—a play on my last name.
The nickname always grated on me, even when I forced myself to smile through it.
It made me feel small. Diminished. A version of me Ben could mold to fit his life, control like a marionette. But I’m not her—not anymore.
I’m not Dolly Mild. I’m Dahlia. Dahlia fucking Wilde. Untamed as my name.
And Dahlia isn’t going to fall into line, picking up the pieces after being cast aside.
She sure as hell isn’t going to stay here, walking back into the department with her tail tucked between her legs.
As the decision cements itself in my mind, something else rises within me—something thrilling and unfamiliar.
A bubbling sense of freedom. And it feels good. The house, Ben, my degree—all of it can wait. Because honestly? I don’t know if any of it really matters anymore. Or honestly, that I even care.
“Good thing I didn’t put everything away,” I mutter under my breath, the decision already made.
Pulling up the airline app again, I hit check-in and blink in surprise. Apparently, drunken me had splurged on a first-class ticket for the return trip. A flicker of pride warms my chest as I say with a wry grin, “Good girl, Dahlia.”
Sitting down with my sad frozen pizza dinner, I grab a pen and start a list of everything I need to do to pause my life here and head back to the other side of the world.
I decide to take only what I can’t live without, stashing it in a storage unit rather than leaving it here for Ben to destroy. After all, once he realizes I’ve burned a few of his prized possessions, I doubt he’ll feel very charitable toward mine.
Then again, my time in the mountains has taught me how little I actually need. Most of the stuff I accumulated with Ben feels like dead weight anyway—his taste, his priorities, his life. I don’t want any of it.
I repack my travel gear, cutting out the items I hadn’t really needed last time and adjusting for the change in seasons.
The last of my warmer layers fits neatly into the bag, and I step back to admire how streamlined it is now.
It’s not just the bag, though—I feel a quiet sense of pride at how much I’ve learned.
Like how to rely on myself in ways I never thought possible. I was resourceful—more than I’d ever given myself credit for. Back here, Ben had been the center of everything. Out there? It was just me. And I managed. More than that—I thrived.
Anything I can easily buy there stays behind, leaving my backpack a model of efficiency. From the house, I restock my first aid kit with essentials and toss a few snacks into my carry-on, just enough to get me through the long trip ahead.
With tomorrow planned and my bags packed, I check and recheck my list, restless. The guest bed, already rumpled from my earlier nap, doesn’t call to me the way it should despite how tired I am. This house, this life—it feels like a stranger’s.
I stop in front of my neatly zipped backpack, the sight filling me with an unexpected pang of finality. I’ve pared my life down to what can fit inside it, shedding everything else like a snake discarding old skin. But it’s not just things I’m leaving behind—it’s an entire version of myself.
The house feels heavy around me, its silence pressing in. Every corner holds echoes of the life I thought I was building with Ben, and for the first time, I realize how much of myself I sacrificed to fill this space.
I tried so hard to make this house feel like a home, to shape myself around him and his needs. Now, all I can feel is the echoing emptiness of our lie of a relationship. The thought makes my chest ache, a dull throb that no amount of planning or packing can erase.
Eventually, I climb back under the covers, forcing myself to lie still even as my thoughts spin with everything I’ve lost and everything I hope is waiting for me on the other side of the world. Sleep comes slowly, fractured and fleeting.
When I finally slip into dreams, they pull me back to the woods. The air is sharp, the scent of pine and woodsmoke thick in my lungs. Shadows ripple across the ground, cast by the flicker of the firepit. And beyond the flames, those silver eyes gleam, waiting, pulling, calling me back.
I wake before dawn, my pulse racing with the memory of them. The pull is sharp, visceral, impossible to ignore. Somewhere deep inside, I feel it settle—the truth I’ve been resisting.
My heart never left India.