Sindy
The fire in the hearth burned too bright.
Its crackle filled the silence he’d left behind, each pop echoing like the memory of his voice. You already do.
Those three words haunted me. They clung to the walls, to the folds of my clothes, to the breath in my lungs. I couldn’t move without hearing them. Couldn’t think without feeling them. Soft as smoke. Just as suffocating.
I paced the chamber like a caged animal, my steps uneven, my thoughts louder than the fire. Every movement summoned him—his eyes, calm and unreadable; his voice, low and unshakable; his presence, maddeningly steady. He was always steady. Always sure. And that certainty made me want to scream.
Because beneath my fury, something else pulsed. Something I refused to name.
I stopped at the window, gripping the sill
