Themanwhostayed
258 Words
By morning, the house felt charged.
Lucas moved through it with an ease that unsettled her—opening cabinets, lifting boxes, brushing past her in narrow hallways with murmured apologies that didn’t sound apologetic at all.
“Do you mind?” she snapped when his arm brushed her back in the kitchen.
His hand stilled on the counter. “You’re standing in the only doorway.”
“Then move,” she said.
Lucas leaned closer instead, bracing one hand on the wall beside her. He didn’t touch her—but he didn’t need to.
“Or what?” he asked quietly.
Her pulse thudded painfully. “You don’t get to corner me.”
“You’ve always hated feeling trapped,” he replied.
The proximity was unbearable. She could smell him—soap, coffee, something unmistakably Lucas. She hated that her body reacted before her pride could stop it.
She slipped past him, breath shallow. “You always did this. Took up space.”
“And you always pretended you didn’t like it,” he said.
That night, Emilia wandered the house, restless.
In her mother’s bedroom, everything was immaculate. The bed neatly made. The curtains drawn just so. Someone had cared.
She pressed her lips together, guilt burning hot.
On the nightstand, something was missing. A space where an object should have been.
Her pulse quickened.
Lucas had been here. Had touched these things. Had seen her mother fade while Emilia had been gone.
The resentment twisted into something darker.
Not just jealousy.
Something dangerously close to longing
- Writer
