THE HOUSE

He's gone!?

CELIA

I woke up to a throbbing head, my skull pounding as if it were caught between two steel doors slamming back and forth. Everything around me felt hazy, like I was underwater, muffled noise sounded far away. The sheets beneath me were damp, and I couldn’t remember when I had crawled back into bed.

My body ached, but the dull pain in my head pulled all my focus. I touched the side where Elias had struck me with the jug, my fingers grazing dried blood and tenderness. Then my phone rang, shrill, sharp and jarring, fumbled for it blindly, but the screen glowed.

“Private Number.”

I hesitated, my heart pounding now for another reason, then I swiped to answer.

“Hello?” My voice was cracked, a little above a whisper.

“Miss Celia… you’re listed as the emergency contact for one Mr. Elias Moreau. We regret to inform you he was involved in a car accident and he didn’t survive.”

Silence, complete, suffocating silence.

I didn’t cry or scream, I just… stared at the wall for a moment, the words circling in my head like slow-moving vultures. Elias. Dead.

I sat there, dazed, for some minutes, my fingers still clutching the phone. I could hear the caller asking something, maybe if I was okay, or telling me what to do next, but it all blurred into static.

When I finally moved, it was to clean my wound, I wrapped my head tightly with a scarf, put on the nearest hoodie, and left the house. The night air was cold, biting against my skin, but I didn’t feel it. I only felt numb.

The drive to the accident scene was short, yet somehow it felt like forever and then I saw it.

Flashing lights, a totaled car and a blood-stained tarp with his lifeless body.

It was then reality punched me in the chest.

Elias was gone, he was really gone.

And for a moment, just one small moment, I stood frozen. Then the tears came, hot and fast, blurring everything around me. I cried until I couldn’t breathe, and then I laughed.

I laughed because the man who made me bleed was now dust. I laughed because I had wished for this, I had begged for it in my mind just before blacking out. I laughed because he was finally, finally gone.

But then came the ache, that twisted, confusing ache.

I missed him, not the monster he became.

The man I met that rainy morning in the bookstore. The one who offered to share his suit with me under the rain and bought me a coffee just to hear me talk about poetry. The one who kissed my fingertips like I was delicate, who danced with me barefoot in the living room, who once cried when I read him a sad poem.

That Elias. I missed him.

But he died long before that accident.

I drove silently back to the house and I shut the door behind me like I wasn’t just standing beside his lifeless body ten minutes ago, like my world hadn’t just collapsed into silence.

The house feels colder now and quiet.

I drop my bag on the floor, stagger toward the couch, and collapse onto it, trembling fingers tracing the armrest he used to grip whenever he was annoyed with something I said. My chest tightens, the last words he said to me weren’t kind, they never were. But now they’re the last I’ll ever hear.

I let out a soft, bitter laugh and shake my head.

“Is this what I wanted?” I whisper into the stillness, “Is this what I asked for?”

I curl my knees to my chest, burying my face in them. “God, I…I wanted him gone, but not like this, I wanted him to suffer, not vanish…not die.”

The tears are back again, hot and fast.

“I used to love him, didn’t I?” I ask no one, my voice was shaky. “There were days I would’ve given everything for him to just touch me gently… say something nice without making me pay for it later.”

A memory flashes, Elias grinning with his messy dark curls in the wind, dragging me into the arcade like an excited child, saying I looked better than any pixelated princess.

I blink the memory away.

“Where did we go wrong?”

The answer sits heavy on my tongue, but I can’t say it. Maybe because I know exactly when it all changed, but saying it makes it too real.

I press my palm to my aching head and sigh, “He’s really gone.”

My tears blur the light filtering through the blinds. I want to scream, and tear this place apart, but instead I lie there like a broken doll, my body heavy with exhaustion and emotion. And eventually, I drift off… still in my clothes, with the scent of blood and sorrow thick in the air.

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

A knock at the door, again, and again, it was persistent and sharp. Like reality slapping me back awake.

I pulled myself up slowly. My limbs were sore, my eyes puffy and for a second I hoped it was him at the door, that maybe I imagined it all. Maybe he wasn’t dead, maybe it was all a twisted dream.

I opened the door.

Three men in black suits stood on the porch, all with poker faced expressions. One held a folder.

“Miss Celia Vans?” the tallest one asked.

I nodded slowly.

“We’re representatives from Carter Tech. We’ve come regarding Mr. Elias Moreau’s estate.”

My spine stiffened, “Estate?”

“Yes,” he continued, his was voice calm and rehearsed, “Per Elias Moreau’s instructions, in the event of his death, all properties under his name revert to the company, house, cars, and investments. It’s an internal agreement tied to his executive contract.”

I blinked at them.

“You’re evicting me?”

“Not immediately. We’ve been instructed to allow you seventy-two hours to vacate, you will find the legal documents here.” He handed over the folder.

I took it slowly, opened it, and skimmed over the signatures, his name was written down in bold ink.

He had planned this, down to the detail.

A dry laugh escaped my lips, then a bitter one. “That bastard,” I muttered, tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. “Even in death, he found a way to ruin me.”

“Would you like us to arrange for transport or…”

“Get off my porch,” I said through gritted teeth.

They nodded, and backed off quietly.

I stood there until they drove off, then slammed the door, pressed my back against it, and slid down to the floor.

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Three days later I was at his funeral

The cemetery is half-empty, yet the air is thick with tension. Only a few men in black suits stood near the grave, their sunglasses hiding whatever emotion they pretended to have, no sobbing mother, no grieving father. Not even a picture of Elias beside the casket, just a wooden plaque with his name: Elias Moreau, 1995–2025.

I stood at a distance, with folded arms, wearing the only black dress I own, one he never let me wear because he said it made me look too confident.

A bitter smile pulls at my lips.

His brothers are here, but they don’t even look at the casket. One is on his phone and the other keeps glancing at his wristwatch like he has somewhere better to be.

The men from the organization…his organization, stood silently, nodding as the priest mumbles words that don’t match the life Elias lived, “He was kind, intelligent, and driven…”

‘Yeah driven to ruin me’, I think.

As the coffin lowers into the ground, I feel… nothing at first, just a numb pulse in my temple, like my body’s waiting to react.

When the first shovel of dirt hits the wood, it echoes in my skull. I whisper under my breath, “You ruined me… and now you’ve left me with your shadow.”

No one looks my way and no one asks if I’m okay. It’s like I’m invisible, and honestly, I prefer it that way.

The service ends quickly and one of the men in a grey suit hands me a white envelope with final documents and gives a short, rehearsed condolence, I take it without reading.

The grave is almost fully covered when I speak again, this time louder, “Goodbye, Elias.”

And then quietly, more to myself than anyone else, “I hope you find peace... even if you never gave me any.”

I turn and walk away before they finish burying him and I don’t look back.