Chapter one
1229 Words
CHAPTER ONE: Fragments.
Lena
Mornings are the hardest.
Because mornings used to mean warmth. A kiss on my shoulder as I brewed coffee. A lazy, half-asleep “Morning, babe,” whispered into my hair. A promise that the day, no matter how heavy, would end with him beside me.
Now mornings mean silence.
A silence so loud it echoes.
The alarm blares, shrill and insistent, but I can’t move. I lie still, staring at the ceiling, listening to the tick of the clock on the nightstand. Tick. Tick. Tick. Each second drags me closer to another day I don’t want to face.
Eventually, I sit up. The sheets are tangled around me, cold where they used to be warm. My eyes catch on the empty space beside me — a grave carved into the mattress.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, feet touching the hardwood. The floor is cold, unforgiving. So is life now.
My reflection in the mirror across the room startles me. Pale skin. Red-rimmed eyes. Hair unwashed, pulled into a half-hearted bun. I look like someone who has lost everything.
And I have.
I drag myself into the shower, the water scalding against my skin. I scrub too hard, as if I can wash away the memory of him. The memory of her. But betrayal clings tighter than dirt. It lives under my skin now.
By the time I leave the apartment, the city is already awake. Suits and sneakers, horns blaring, coffee cups clutched like lifelines. People rushing to places that matter.
I envy them.
They have direction. Purpose. Futures.
I don’t.
All I have is the vow I whispered the night I lost everything:
Never again.
---
At work, the walls close in. My desk feels like a stage. I know people are watching, even if they pretend they aren’t. Their eyes flick toward me with pity, curiosity, relief that it’s me and not them.
Someone left flowers on my desk last week. A pity bouquet. I let them wilt, petals curling in on themselves until they shriveled to nothing. I haven’t thrown them away. Maybe I like watching something else decay alongside me.
“Hey, Lena,” Mark from accounting says gently, his voice too careful, like he’s afraid I’ll shatter if he speaks too loudly. “Do you… need anything?”
I shake my head. Force a smile. Lie.
“I’m fine.”
I bury myself in spreadsheets, in numbers that don’t betray me. Columns, formulas, endless cells that don’t whisper lies in the dark.
But even there, in the monotony of work, the memories attack.
Daniel brushing my hair back as I leaned over my laptop.
Mara dropping by with lunch “for us” but always laughing a little too hard at his jokes.
The way they looked at each other when they thought I wasn’t paying attention.
My stomach twists. I shove the memories down, hide behind my computer screen, and remind myself of the vow:
Never again.
---
When I leave the office, the city is buzzing. Street vendors shouting, car horns blaring, the smell of roasted chestnuts and gasoline mingling in the air. People laughing, rushing, living.
And me?
I’m just surviving.
I walk home alone. Unlock the door. Step into silence. The apartment is too big for one person, too full of ghosts.
I make tea. Scroll through social media. Engagements. Babies. Smiling faces. Lives that aren’t mine.
Then the memory comes back, as it always does. His voice. Her laugh. Our bed. The sound of betrayal.
The mug trembles in my hands. I curl into myself on the couch, whispering the words again.
“Never again.”
---
Dorian
Nights are the hardest.
Because nights used to mean Evelyn. Her head on my chest. Her voice humming along to whatever song drifted from the record player. Her laugh echoing in the dark when I teased her about falling asleep halfway through a movie.
Now nights mean silence.
A silence so suffocating it drowns me.
I sit in the apartment we were supposed to share. Most of her things are gone — her parents came weeks after the funeral, stiff-faced, refusing to meet my eyes. They packed her clothes, her books, her jewelry. But they didn’t take everything.
Her sweater still hangs on the back of the chair. Her mug still sits in the cupboard. Her perfume lingers faintly in the air.
Sometimes I think they left those things on purpose.
To remind me.
To punish me.
To make sure I never forget what I did.
And I don’t.
I was the one driving.
I was the one who swerved too late.
I was the one who lived.
---
At work, they whisper.
“Poor guy,” I hear them say when they think I can’t. “Lost his fiancée.”
As if she just vanished. As if she wasn’t crushed in front of me, her last breath spilling into my hands.
They don’t say the truth.
That I killed her.
---
My boss pretends not to notice when I come in late, eyes bloodshot. My coworkers pretend not to see the bottles piling up in my recycling bin when they come by. They don’t ask. They don’t want the answers.
I go through the motions. Wake up. Dress. Commute. Code until my brain shuts off. Go home. Drink until the guilt blurs. Sleep. Repeat.
But the dreams never stop.
The rain.
The headlights.
The sound of metal crushing, glass shattering, Evelyn gasping my name.
I wake up gasping, drenched in sweat, heart hammering. I stumble to the kitchen, pour another drink, anything to numb it.
But numb doesn’t mean gone.
---
Sometimes, when I walk past couples holding hands or hear laughter spilling from bars, something stirs in me. A ghost of longing. A memory of what I had.
But then the guilt swallows it whole.
Because how dare I want anything, when Evelyn is gone?
I stand at the window, looking down at the blur of neon and headlights. The city is alive. I am not.
I remind myself of the vow I made:
Better to be alone.
---
Lena
The weekend comes, but weekends mean nothing now. No plans. No friends. Mara was my shadow, my sister, my everything. She’s gone now too.
I wander through the city streets, anonymous in the crowd. Couples laugh, families argue, children tug at their parents’ hands. I keep walking, my body moving, my mind elsewhere.
Past memories chase me. Daniel leaning over to kiss me in the grocery store. Mara linking her arm through mine, dragging me to try on dresses. Laughter. Warmth. Trust.
All gone.
I stop at a café, order coffee, sit by the window. Watch the world move on without me.
And I whisper, again, the vow.
“Never again.”
---
Dorian
Sunday nights used to mean her. Takeout sushi, bad movies, her falling asleep halfway through while I carried her to bed.
Now Sunday nights mean whiskey. Silence. Regret.
I sit in the dark, her sweater clutched in my hands, the smell of her fading.
And I whisper, again, the vow.
“Better to be alone.”
---
Two strangers.
Two wounds.
Two promises whispered into the same city night.
Not knowing their paths are already bending toward each other.
Not knowing survival might look like love.
- Writer
