In the Space Between Us

Chapter 3: Past Shadows

Ethan lived in a museum of his own making.

His apartment was immaculate. Minimalism wasn’t just a design choice for him; it was a defense mechanism. Less clutter meant less chaos. White walls, gray furniture, sharp angles. Everything had a place, and everything stayed in its place.

It was Wednesday night, the air in the living room stagnant and cool. Ethan sat on his sofa, his phone glowing in his hand. The screen displayed a text message from Mika (Not a Plant).

It was a photo. A close-up of a linen napkin folded into a shape that looked disturbingly like a dead swan.

Mika: The bride says this represents "eternal grace." I think it looks like roadkill. Thoughts?

Ethan stared at the image, a small smile cracking the stoic mask he wore even when he was alone. He typed out a reply.

Ethan: Definitely roadkill. Needs more starch.

He hit send. The "delivered" checkmark appeared instantly.

Then, the smile faded.

Ethan set the phone down on the coffee table, face up. His eyes drifted from the screen to the empty space on the bookshelf across the room. It was a small gap, just wide enough for three or four hardbacks, nestled between his architecture textbooks and a row of vinyl records.

Most people wouldn’t notice it. But to Ethan, that gap was a gaping wound.

It was where she had kept her poetry books.

The memory hit him not like a wave, but like a slow, rising tide of cold water. He closed his eyes and he was back there—fourteen months ago. The day the silence in the apartment had turned violent.

“You’re not even here, Ethan!”

Her voice echoed in his head, shrill and desperate. Clara.

He could see her standing by the door, suitcases packed. She was crying, but he hadn’t been able to cry. He had just stood there, paralyzed, his hands in his pockets, watching the person he thought he was going to marry dismantle their life together.

“I’m right here,” he had said. The same thing he always said.

“No, you’re not. You’re a house with no doors,” Clara had spat, the words designed to hurt. “You’re beautiful to look at, Ethan, but there’s no way in. I’ve been knocking for three years, and I’m tired of bruising my knuckles.”

She had left. And Ethan had done the only thing he knew how to do: he cleaned. He reorganized. He erased the traces of her until the apartment looked like a showroom again. Perfect. Empty. Safe.

He opened his eyes. The bookshelf was still there. The gap was still there.

His phone buzzed.

Mika: She wants to know if you can design a bathroom that fits the swan theme. I told her you’re exclusive.

Ethan let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Mika’s texts were light, ridiculous, and completely devoid of heavy expectations. She didn't want inside the house; she was just standing on the lawn, making jokes about the landscaping.

It felt safe. But he knew how quickly safe could turn to dangerous.

He picked up the phone, his thumb hovering over the keyboard. He wanted to reply. He wanted to keep the banter going. But Clara’s voice was a whisper in his ear: You’re a house with no doors.

If he let Mika in, even just a little, she would eventually realize the same thing. She would realize that the "mysterious silence" she found intriguing was actually just emptiness.

Don’t inflict yourself on her, the shadow whispered.

He typed: I’m very expensive.

He hit send before he could delete it.

Across the city, Mika Torres was sitting on her bathroom floor.

The tiles were cold against her legs, but she didn’t care. She had locked the door, turned on the shower to create white noise, and was currently staring at her reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the door.

She looked tired. The makeup that she wore like war paint—the sharp eyeliner, the bright lipstick—was half-wiped away, leaving her face looking smeared and vulnerable.

She held her phone in one hand, but she wasn’t looking at Ethan’s text.

She was looking at a notification that had popped up on i********: ten minutes ago.

Damien Cortez liked your photo.

It was a harmless action. A double-tap on a screen. A pixelated heart. But it made Mika’s stomach turn over.

Damien.

The name tasted like ash.

She swiped the notification away, angry at herself for the physical reaction. It had been two years. Two years since the "Incident." Two years since she had learned that being herself was a liability.

She leaned her head back against the bathtub porcelain. She could still feel the humiliation of that night at the gallery opening. Damien, handsome and charming Damien, with his arm around her waist, squeezing just a little too hard.

“Can you just… tone it down?” he had whispered in her ear, smiling for the cameras while he cut her down. “You’re laughing too loud, Mika. You’re embarrassing me. Just stand there and look pretty. Stop trying to be the comedian.”

She had spent six months trying to be quieter. Trying to be smaller. Trying to be the elegant, silent ornament he wanted. She had folded herself into tiny, sharp shapes, just like the stupid napkins she worked with, trying to fit into the box of his approval.

It hadn't worked. He had cheated on her anyway with a girl who didn’t make jokes, a girl who looked at him like he was a god and never asked difficult questions.

Since then, Mika had gone the other way. She became louder. Funnier. If she made the joke first, no one could laugh at her. If she kept everything on the surface, no one could tell her she was too deep or too much.

Humor was her shield. But shields were heavy, and tonight, her arm was tired.

Her phone buzzed again.

Ethan: I’m very expensive.

Mika stared at the screen. A genuine smile cut through the gloom in the bathroom.

Ethan was… different. He didn’t tell her to be quiet. In fact, on the balcony, and at the coffee shop, he had listened. He had looked at her like she was a person, not a performance.

But he was guarded. She could see it. He was like a puzzle box that was glued shut.

Careful, Mika, she thought. The quiet ones are the ones who break your heart the hardest. Because you never hear them leaving.

She knew she should put the phone down. She should go to sleep. She should focus on work and forget about the architect with the sad eyes. Chloe had warned her: “He’s an emotional project, Meek. You don’t need a project. You need a finished building.”

Mika wiped the rest of the mascara from under her eye. She looked at her bare face in the mirror.

"I'm not a project," she whispered to the empty room.

She unlocked her phone. She ignored the lingering dread of Damien’s "like." She focused on the blinking cursor in her chat with Ethan.

Mika: I can pay you in leftover wedding cake and sarcasm.

She waited. The three dots appeared. Then disappeared. Then appeared again.

Ethan: Deal. But no fruitcake.

Mika let out a short laugh, leaning her head back against the wall. It was a small connection. A tiny thread thrown across the chasm between them.

She didn't know why Ethan was so sad. She didn't know what ghost was haunting his immaculate apartment. And he didn't know that she was hiding in her bathroom because she was afraid of being "too much."

But for tonight, the thread held.

Mika turned off the shower. The silence rushed back in, but it felt a little less lonely than before.

She stood up, her knees cracking. She needed to sleep. Tomorrow was another day of fake smiles and other people's happiness. But as she turned off the light, she held her phone to her chest for just a second, holding onto the warmth of a conversation that asked nothing of her but to be exactly who she was.