Heart Signed With Lies

Rain in His Eyes

It rained the next morning.

Not a gentle drizzle nor the kind that left kisses on windowpanes, but a torrential downpour that soaked the city in minutes and made the roads hiss like snakes under car tires. Students darted across the campus with coats over their heads and books stuffed into plastic bags.

I barely noticed.

My mind was still trapped in the folds of that ink-stained paper. The words had burned themselves into my thoughts like scars.

“Lies are inked in the heart long before they touch the page.”

C. Hayes.

I had barely slept. I kept trying to convince myself it was a coincidence, a trick, or maybe even someone’s cruel idea of a prank. But the ink, the timing, and the man’s words in the basement…

It was too specific.

Too personal.

And I hadn’t told anyone about my mother in years.

Not Vivienne. Not my professors. Not even the university itself had the full story. My scholarship was secured through an anonymous recommendation and a string of faked documents my aunt helped me prepare.

Claire Hayes was supposed to be a ghost.

Not someone leaving notes in my textbooks.

“Amara, hey.” Vivienne nudged me gently, holding an umbrella in one hand and a steaming travel mug in the other. “You’re standing in the rain like you’re auditioning for a breakup scene in a drama.”

I blinked, realizing I was still outside the dorm building, soaked to the bone.

“Crap.” I followed her under the umbrella. “I—I didn’t even notice.”

“You didn’t notice a thunderstorm?” she said, eyes narrowing. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Just tired.”

She paused like she didn’t believe me, then handed me the travel mug. “Chamomile tea. You look like you need it more than I do.”

I took it, murmuring a “Thank You”. The warmth didn’t do much to settle my nerves, but it was something to hold on to.

We walked toward the literature building in silence, boots squelching in the flooded grass.

“Are you still planning to go to the lecture this afternoon?” Vivienne asked. “Or are you skipping again to lurk around the library?”

Her voice was teasing, but I flinched.

“I don’t lurk.”

“Uh-huh. That’s not what the library staff say. “They’ve seen you wandering the basement stacks like a ghost.”

I didn’t respond.

Because she was right—I’d been avoiding my normal routine. Yesterday had rattled me more than I wanted to admit. Every glance felt suspicious, every whisper sounded like a warning.

I needed answers. Not distractions.

After class, I returned to the back of the library where I’d first seen him. The rain had slowed to a quiet drizzle, and puddles mirrored the gray sky above. The maintenance door was locked again, sealed as though nothing unusual had ever happened.

But the ink stains were gone.

No smear on the bricks. No black streaks on the ground. Like he’d never been there at all.

I pulled out the folded paper again and stared at the writing. I’d checked the university archives that morning—Claire Hayes had never published anything, never taught here, never even visited the campus as far as the records showed.

But the signature… I recognized it. It was hers.

She used to sign my birthday cards with just the initials—C.H.—followed by a tiny ink doodle of a daisy. The paper didn’t have the flower, but everything else was the same.

So how did this man have it?

“Looking for something?” a voice asked from behind me.

I startled, shoving the paper into my coat pocket. A tall guy stood there, holding a dripping umbrella and a worn leather satchel. He looked vaguely familiar; sharp cheekbones, tan skin, and the kind of face that sticks in your memory, but not for any particular reason.

“I—I was just passing through,” I said quickly.

He raised an eyebrow. “In a dead-end alley during midterm week?”

I flushed.

“I’m Julian,” he added, offering a hand.

I didn’t take it. “Amara.”

He didn’t seem offended. Instead, he gestured toward the maintenance door. That’s been sealed for months. You’re not the first person to try it. Campus rumors said it leads to “an old printing press from when the library was a publishing house in the '50s.”

“Does it?”

“No idea”. “But if you’re into creepy history, I could show you something better.” He tilted his head. “You seem like someone who collects secrets.”

That line should’ve crept me out, but it didn’t.

It intrigued me.

“How do you know that?”

He smiled. “Because I do, too.”

Julian led me around the side of the building and into a wing of the library I didn’t recognize. We passed through a set of old wooden doors marked ARCHIVES – STAFF ONLY in faded gold letters.

“How do you have access to this?” I asked.

He flashed a badge. “Student assistant for the history department. Perks include dusty shelves and ancient coffee machines.”

We walked down a hallway lined with shelves taller than I could reach, filled with yellowed documents, old yearbooks, and local newspapers bound in leather.

“This,” he said, stopping at a rolling cart of unsorted files, “is where stories go to be forgotten.”

I ran my fingers over the spines of the books. It smelled like time.

“Why are you showing me this?”

“Because you looked like someone chasing a ghost,” he said softly. “And I figured maybe I could help you catch it.”

I stared at him.

“You don’t know me.”

“No,” Julian said. “But I’ve seen that look in the mirror.”

He pulled a folder from the middle of the cart and handed it to me. “Local mystery”. Ten years ago. A house fire on the outskirts of town. “The case went cold; no survivors, no explanation.”

My hands trembled as I opened the file.

There it was.

A black-and-white photo of a house, charred and collapsed. The date—July 16th—, the same day I lost my mother.

I turned the page and stopped.

A report. Fire damage. Suspected arson. Victim: Claire Hayes's Daughter: Amara Hayes—status unknown.

“They thought I died in the fire,” I whispered.

Julian’s brow furrowed. “But you didn’t.”

“No. My mother got me out, but she didn’t make it. At least… that’s what I was told.”

His eyes softened. “You never saw a body?”

I shook my head. “Just ashes.”

Julian nodded slowly, then leaned in, voice low. “What if she didn’t die either?”

The room tilted.

“I found something last month in one of the older records,” he continued. A purchase under the name C. Hayes, dated four years ago. A small cabin rental outside town. But the signature— he paused, then pulled out a photocopy from his bag- “matches the one on this note”.

He handed it to me.

Same cursive. Same C. Hayes.

Same daisy at the end.

My knees nearly buckled.

She was alive.

Or at least… she had always been.