Page 87 of All the Things We Buried

The Harley screamed down the road. I didn’t look back.

On my wrist, the clock buzzed.

11:11

They say that the number means new beginnings.

Maybe that was always the truth about us. Maybe I was her number one, and maybe she was never really mine. I chose others. Again and again. Until I had nothing left to choose but her memory.

They say you only understand what love is once you’ve lost it.

And I lost everything.

Now, in Gloomsbury Manor, where the dark things bloom, everything else is buried.

THE END

Epilogue

DOVE

"Hold your words too long, and you’ll bury them beside the person who needed to hear them most."

All the Lines We Crossed

The house didn’t scare me. It should have. Everything about Gloomsbury Manor screamedbad things had happened here.The walls were too thick. The mirrors are too clean. Therewas always a draft, even when the windows were shut. Like the place never really breathed, justwatched.

But I wasn’t afraid. Because I knew something worse than ghosts.

I knew love that shouldn’t exist.

It was his idea to come. “A new start,” he had said, like that wasn’t the most ironic thing he could’ve said to me. Nothing about us was new. Nothing about us ever would be.

We didn’t belong anywhere else. Not really. Not anymore.

He raised me after my mother died. His sister. He did everything right—back then. Protective. Strict. Always kept the door open when I had nightmares. Never lingering too long when I hugged him. Always pulling away first.

Until I started pulling him back.

There’s a moment when a wrong thing doesn’t feel wrong anymore. When it feels necessary. And if you don’t stop it then, you never will.

We never did.

The house didn’t care. Itlikedus.

I could feel it every time we touched each other and the lights flickered—when the upstairs hallway warmed in the middle of winter, only when we passed through. The house saw us and wanted more. Not to punish. To preserve.

He fought it harder than I did. He’d pace at night. Sit at the edge of the bed like distance was a cure. But he always ended up back under the covers, his hand in my hair. His mouth at my neck. Sayingjust tonight,and meaningforever.

Some things don’t need to be spoken aloud to be permanent.

I think he wanted to believe the house changed me. That it whispered things I shouldn’t want. That it made me dangerous. But he knew the truth. I wasn’t a girl anymore, and I didn’t need a house to tell me what I wanted. I only needed him to stop pretending he didn’t want it too.

Now he doesn’t pretend anymore.

He doesn’t talk to me in front of other people. Barely touches me outside these walls. But at night, he holds me like I’m something he shouldn’t have stolen—but won’t give back.

We don’t talk about what this is. We don’t use words likelove. But the house knows.

The house keeps our secrets.

And so do I.