Owned By Silence: The Forbidden Affair

Hannah's POV "Why did you have to leave me..." I whispered into the suffocating darkness of my Brooklyn apartment, my body curled into a ball on the bathroom floor. No tears came. Probably because I had cried every single one of them. I was alone. Mentally unstable. Hurt. I felt lost and broken. A body that felt like a grave for everything I'd lost. “Why…” I said once again, my voice breaking towards the end as my throat clogged up. I wanted the world to stop with me, to sit in my grief, but it wouldn’t. It kept going, screaming at me through the shrill tone I had been ignoring. The phone had been ringing for ten minutes straight. I knew who it was without looking. My mother. Today was the day she called every year, like clockwork, like a wound being reopened and salt being added to it. I pressed my face against the cold tiles, welcoming the sharp bite against my skin. Physical pain was easier than the agony that lived in my chest, that hollow space where my heart used to be. The ringing stopped. Then started again. "Hannah, sweetheart, please pick up." My mother's voice echoed through the voicemail, that familiar tone of forced cheer that made my skin crawl. "I know today is difficult, but we should be together. It's Marcus's anniversary, honey. Three years since..." I scrambled for the phone, my hands shaking as I answered. "Mom, I can't…" "Oh, thank God you picked up! Hannah, I've been so worried. I think you should come home today. We can visit the cemetery together, bring those white roses he loved. Your father and I think it would be good for you to—" "No." The word came out as a whisper, then stronger. "No, I can't. I won't." "Sweetheart, you can't keep running from this. It's been three years. You need to face—" "Face what?" I screamed into the phone, my voice echoing off the bathroom walls. "Face the fact that the only man I'll ever love is dead? Face the fact that I'll never feel anything close to that again? Face the fact that I'm just marking time until I can figure out how to join him?" Silence on the other end. Then my mother's broken voice: "Hannah, please don't say things like that. Marcus wouldn't want—" "Don't you dare tell me what Marcus would want!" I was on my feet now, pacing the small bathroom like a caged animal. My breath coming out in gasps. "He's dead, Mom. He's gone, and he's never coming back, and I can't... I can't do this today. I can't think about this. I have work. I have to focus on work." "Honey, work isn't going to fix this. You need to grieve properly, you need to…" I hung up. The phone immediately started ringing again. I stared at the screen, Mom flashing with that stupid heart emoji I'd added back when I thought family meant something. Back when I thought love was forever. Back when I was naive enough to believe that good things didn't get ripped away without warning. My thumb hovered over the answer button, then slid to "Block Contact" instead. "I can't," I whispered to the phone. "I can't take this. Not today. Not ever." But even with the phone silenced, I could hear my mother's words echoing in my head. Marcus's anniversary. As if I didn't know. As if I hadn't been counting down the hours, the minutes, the seconds until this moment arrived again. As if I hadn't spent the last month having nightmares about that phone call three years ago. Mr. Peterson's voice, broken and filled with regret: "There's been an accident, honey. Marcus... Marcus is gone." "I can't think about this!" I screamed at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. "I can't! I have work! I have to function! I have to—" My fist connected with the glass before I realized I was moving. The mirror exploded into a spider web of cracks, my face fracturing into a thousand pieces. I looked at myself through the broken mirror, hair sticking to my face. Blood welled on my knuckles, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the agony ripping through my chest. "He's never coming back," I sobbed, sliding down the wall until I was sitting in the broken glass. "He's never coming back, and I'll never love anyone else. I'll never feel anything real again. I'm just... I'm just existing. I'm just going through the motions until I die." The apartment was silent except for my broken breathing and the sound of glass tinkling as I moved. And here I was, bleeding on my bathroom floor, talking to the ghost of a man who died loving me more than I deserved. "I should have been on that motorcycle with you," I whispered to the cracked mirror, to the fragments of my face staring back. "I should have been there. We should have died together." But I hadn't died. I was trapped here, in this half-life, pretending to be human while feeling nothing but emptiness where love used to live. My phone buzzed. A text from my mother, probably sent before I blocked her: "Sweetheart, I love you. Marcus loved you. Please don't give up." I deleted it without reading past the first few words. I couldn't think about love. I couldn't think about Marcus. I couldn't think about anniversaries or cemeteries or the future we'd planned that died with him. I had work. I had my job processing paperwork and answering phones and being invisible. I had my routine that kept me functioning, kept me moving through the days without having to feel anything real. That's all I had left. And it had to be enough. Because the alternative—actually feeling the full weight of what I'd lost—would destroy what little was left of me. I pulled myself up from the broken glass, washed the blood from my hands, and got ready for another day of pretending to be alive. Just like every day for the past three years. ***** The subway platform was more crowded than usual, bodies pressed together in the morning rush. I found my usual spot by the pillar, earbuds in, trying to disappear into the sea of commuters heading to their jobs. "Excuse me, are you okay?" A woman beside me was staring at my bandaged knuckles with concern. "You're bleeding through the gauze." I looked down. Red was seeping through the white bandages I'd hastily wrapped around my hands. "I'm fine." "Are you sure? You look…" "I said I'm fine." She backed away, probably sensing the sharp edge in my voice. Everyone always backed away. I was good at making people uncomfortable, at keeping them at a distance where they couldn't hurt me. Where I couldn't hurt them. The train arrived with its familiar screech, and I let the crowd push me forward. Packed into the car like sardines, surrounded by people living their lives, going places that mattered to them. All I could think about was Marcus. The way he used to text me good morning every day from Australia. The way he'd send me photos of the sunrise from his construction site. The way he'd count down the days until he could come home to me. "Next stop, Union Square." Union Square. Where Marcus had proposed on a cold December morning, getting down on one knee in front of the Christmas market while tourists applauded. Where he'd promised me forever. Where forever ended three years ago today. Where a future had died with him. I needed air. I needed to get off this train, away from these people, away from memories that were suffocating me. "Excuse me," I mumbled, pushing through the crowd as the doors opened. "Excuse me, I need to get off." I burst onto the platform, gasping like I'd been underwater. The underground station felt like a tomb, all concrete and artificial light and the weight of the city pressing down from above. I ran for the stairs, taking them two at a time, desperate to reach the surface. To breathe. To think. To figure out how to survive the next hour, let alone the next day. The street was chaos—taxis honking, construction workers yelling, the constant symphony of New York that usually helped me blend into the background. But today it felt like noise, like everyone was screaming at once. I walked without direction, letting my feet carry me wherever they wanted to go. "This has to stop," I whispered to myself. "I have to stop living in the past.” But I couldn't stop. I found myself standing outside Cole Industries, staring up at the glass tower where I spent eight hours a day processing other people's important documents. "I should go in," I said aloud, not caring if people heard me talking to myself. But my feet wouldn't move. I stood on the sidewalk, people flowing around me like water around a stone, and felt the full weight of my emptiness settling over me like a blanket. Three years of pretending to be human while feeling nothing but the ache where love used to live. "No…no…” The words came out as a whisper, but they felt like a scream. I couldn't keep pretending. Couldn't keep forcing myself through the motions of a life that had no meaning. Without thinking, I stepped into the street. The SUV came out of nowhere, or maybe I just wasn't looking. Maybe some part of me knew it was there and didn't care. Time slowed down. I could see the driver's face through the windshield, his eyes wide with panic as he slammed on the brakes. Could hear the screech of tires on asphalt, smell burning rubber. Could hear people screaming for me to stop. I closed my eyes and let out a breath I'd been holding for three years. Finally. Death was here to claim me.