GHOST FROM THE PAST
1009 Words
Chloe’s POV
There’s something deeply ironic about the fact that even with all this wealth surrounding me:Richard’s luxury cars, the marble floors beneath my feet, the glistening chandeliers casting diamonds of light on the walls, I still feel cold.
Not the kind of cold that a silk robe or another glass of red wine could fix.
No. This cold stems from somewhere deeper, somewhere darker. It’s the ache of returning to a place that once felt like home only to find that the ghosts are still waiting, sitting patiently in every corner like loyal dogs.
And today, I met one of them in the flesh.
Sherry.
I hadn’t planned to see her. Certainly not at the salon. But fate is cruel, had other plans. I came in for a simple wash and style. I just wanted to feel normal again, like the woman I was before Lyon, before betrayal, before Richard’s world of power and manipulation swallowed me whole.
But then, as the stylist brushed through my hair, the air shifted.
I didn’t need to turn around. I knew her perfume. Sweet, heady, laced with desperation.
“Imagine finding you here,” she said, her voice sharper than the scissors on the table.
I slowly turned to face her in the mirror. There she was, in all her delusional glory. Sherry. Her lips glossed too perfectly, the corners of her smile twitching with something venomous.
I held her gaze. “It’s a public salon, Sherry. I didn’t realize I needed your permission to be here.”
“You don’t,” she said, her grin tightening. “But I wonder what you're really here for, Chloe. The hair? Or the thrill of ruining my life again?”
I smiled gently, calm in the face of the storm she desperately wanted to brew. “Oh, darling. You’d need to have a life for me to ruin one.”
The stylist paused awkwardly, eyes darting between us, unsure whether to continue.
Sherry took a step closer. Her voice dropped to a whisper, sharp and glittering. “You think this is a game, don’t you? Showing up here, marrying Richard like it’s nothing? Walking around this town with your chin raised high, like you didn’t disappear for five years.”
“I didn’t disappear,” I replied, rising slowly from the chair, letting the salon robe fall away. “I rebuilt. Something you clearly haven’t mastered.”
Her eyes flared. “You stole Lyon’s job. You’re humiliating him. And now, what...what’s next, Chloe? You’ll go after his dignity too?”
I laughed, a soft, low sound that had more weight than words. “His dignity? Sherry, he gave that away the day he chose you over me.”
Her hand trembled at her side. I noticed it. She was unraveling.
Good.
“You think you’re untouchable now because you have Richard?” she hissed. “Do you think that makes you better than us?”
“No,” I replied, stepping forward until we were nearly chest to chest. “I was always better. Richard just reminded me of it.”
For a moment, she looked as though she might slap me. Her breath came fast. But then, something flickered in her eyes,hesitation? Guilt? No, not guilt. Something else.
Fear.
“You’re hiding something,” she said quietly. “I saw it in Lyon’s eyes. You have a secret, Chloe. And I’ll find it.”
I leaned in, lips barely inches from hers. “Good luck, sweetheart. Just be careful. Some secrets cut deeper than betrayal.”
And with that, I turned and walked out of the salon.
But the moment I stepped into the car, my hands trembled on the steering wheel. Because she was right.
I was hiding something.
The truth wasn’t just buried,it was chained, locked, and buried in the deepest part of my past. The real reason I left five years ago. The part of the story no one,not Lyon, not Sherry, not even Richard knew about.
I gripped the wheel tighter. My pulse throbbed in my throat.
What if she finds it?
What if the truth I buried rises again?
I reached into my bag and pulled out the sealed envelope I had carried with me for years, one I hadn’t dared to open since the day I received it.
The return address was in Paris.
Doctor Delacroix.
I traced the letters with my fingertips. Five years ago, I fled with more than a broken heart. I left carrying something else. Something... or someone.
And I had made a choice, a painful one.
The knock on the car window startled me.
It was the driver.
“Madam,” he said softly, “Mr. Richard is asking for you.”
I nodded, slipping the envelope back into my bag, locking it like a box of sins.
“I’ll be right there.”
But as we drove off, I couldn’t shake the unease. The feeling that something was shifting. That Lyon wasn’t the only storm I’d have to face. I knew somehow and at a point in my life, I won't have to run away from the truth, rather I would face it.
Richard had started asking questions lately. About my past. About those five years I spent abroad. About why I flinched every time someone mentioned hospitals or children.
I thought I’d silenced that chapter.
But perhaps it was never truly closed.
Because later that evening, when I returned to our estate, something was waiting for me in the mailroom.
A white envelope.
No name. No stamp. Just a message scribbled in jagged ink:
“I know your truth. Soon, he will too.”
My knees buckled.
Because the handwriting,it was hers. The beautiful devil who has sworn to always chase my shadows.
Sherry.
Somehow, she knew.
Or worse...
She’d found it.
And just as I turned around, clutching the letter to my chest, I heard Richard’s voice from upstairs.
“Chloe? Can we talk? There’s something I found today… something you need to explain.”
To be continued!
- Writer
