Chapter 7: What I Burn to Stay Standing
1149 Words
Sleep didn’t come easily that night.
When it finally did, it dragged memories with it—sharp, unwelcome things that slipped through the cracks of exhaustion. The sterile smell of hospitals. The soft hum of machines working harder than her body ever could. My mother’s hand in mine, thin but stubbornly warm, squeezing like she was afraid I’d disappear if she let go.
I woke before dawn with a tight chest and a bitter taste in my mouth.
For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. Then the silence reminded me. Not peaceful silence—controlled silence. The kind that existed because someone decided it should.
I swung my legs off the bed and padded to the window. The grounds were still dark, shadows stretching long across stone and iron. Somewhere below, someone moved—slow, deliberate. Always watching. Always awake.
My fingers itched.
I reached for my jacket without thinking, slipping it on like armor. From the inside pocket, I pulled out a cigarette. Just one. I told myself that every time. Just one to steady my hands. To quiet the noise.
I cracked the window just enough and leaned out, shielding the flame as I lit it. The first drag burned going in, sharp and grounding. I exhaled slowly, watching the smoke dissolve into the morning air.
Breathing out always felt easier than breathing in.
“You know,” a voice said calmly behind me, “the sensors don’t like that.”
I didn’t scream. I didn’t flinch.
That, too, felt like progress.
“I figured,” I said, taking another drag. “They don’t seem like the forgiving type.”
He stood near the doorway, already dressed, already composed. As if he’d been awake for hours. As if rest was optional in his world.
“You could’ve told me,” I added. “About the sensors.”
“You didn’t ask,” he replied.
I laughed softly, smoke curling from my lips. “Funny how that keeps happening.”
His gaze flicked briefly to the cigarette, then back to my face. Not judgment. Calculation.
“Does it help?” he asked.
I shrugged. “It keeps me from shaking.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” I agreed. “But it’s close enough.”
He said nothing, watching as I stubbed it out on the sill and shut the window. The room smelled faintly of smoke now—like me. Like something burned but not gone.
“You’ll need breakfast,” he said after a moment. “Today won’t be quiet.”
That caught my attention. “Why?”
“Because you were seen yesterday,” he replied. “And people don’t ignore what they think they can use.”
I folded my arms. “You said I did well.”
“You did,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t ripple.”
The word sent a chill through me.
We ate in a room too large for comfort, across a table that felt like a boundary line. I barely touched the food. He noticed, of course.
“You don’t eat much,” he said.
“I eat when I want to feel,” I replied.
His eyes lifted. “And now?”
“Now I don’t.”
Something dark passed through his expression, gone as quickly as it appeared.
After breakfast, the house changed tempo.
Voices moved faster. Footsteps multiplied. Doors opened and closed with purpose. I felt it like pressure behind my eyes, like the moment before a storm breaks.
I found myself in the sitting room by midmorning, nursing a glass of something amber and sharp. I hadn’t asked for it. It had simply appeared beside me.
I took a sip. The burn slid down my throat, familiar and welcome.
My mother used to hate it when I drank.
Not because she was strict—but because she knew why I did.
I stared into the glass, memories pressing closer now. Her laugh, once full and warm. The way it faded over months. The way cancer didn’t just take her body—it took the sound of her, piece by piece.
“You’re doing it again.”
His voice came from the doorway.
“Doing what?” I asked, not looking up.
“Leaving,” he said. “While your body stays.”
I took another drink. “You should add that to the rules.”
He crossed the room slowly. “I don’t make rules for grief.”
That did it.
I laughed—short, brittle. “Everyone does,” I said. “They just pretend they’re being kind.”
He stopped in front of me. “Tell me about her.”
I froze.
“No,” I said immediately.
He didn’t push. Didn’t argue.
“Then tell me this,” he said instead. “If she were alive, would she want you hiding here?”
The question cut deeper than anything he’d said before.
I stood abruptly, glass clinking against the table. “Don’t,” I warned.
“Would she?” he pressed gently.
“She’d want me alive,” I snapped. “And you seem very convinced those are the same thing.”
For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, quietly, “So am I.”
That afternoon, I learned the house had levels.
Not physical ones—but emotional. Places where the air felt heavier. Where even the guards spoke less. I wandered into one by accident, following a hallway I hadn’t seen before.
That was where I heard my name.
“…the café confirmed it,” a voice said. “They clocked her immediately.”
“She’s not ready,” another replied.
“She doesn’t have a choice.”
I stepped back before they could see me, heart pounding.
Not ready for what?
That night, I couldn’t sit still.
I smoked two cigarettes back-to-back at the window, drank until the edges of the room softened, until the memories dulled just enough to breathe around.
A knock came at my door, quieter this time.
“You shouldn’t be alone tonight,” he said when I opened it.
I tilted my head. “Is that concern, or another perimeter?”
“Both,” he replied honestly.
I studied his face, the shadows under his eyes, the weight he carried like it belonged there.
“Stay,” I said before I could overthink it.
He didn’t touch me. Didn’t cross the room.
He simply sat in the chair across from the bed, present and silent.
And for the first time since my mother died, I didn’t feel like the night might swallow me whole.
As sleep finally claimed me, one thought lingered, heavy and undeniable.
I wasn’t just being protected anymore.
I was being positioned.
And whatever was coming next wouldn’t ask whether I was ready.
It would only ask whether I survived.
- Writer
