Page 13 of Dark Soul (Tainted #1)

The kitchen is too clean. Every surface gleams, wiped down to a sterile shine that smells faintly of lemon and lavender. It is a scent I used to love, before I associated it with cabinets too tightly shut and conversations that went nowhere.

I stand at the threshold, arms crossed, spine tight.

Rain lashes the windows behind me, the rhythm sharp and erratic, like fingers tapping to a song only I can hear. I haven’t even taken off my coat yet.

My suitcase sits by the front door, still zipped, untouched since the cab dropped me off nearly an hour ago. My foster mother hasn’t hugged me. We never really know how to close that kind of distance.

“Do you want tea?” my mother asks from across the room.

She doesn’t wait for an answer before placing a porcelain cup of chamomile tea onto the counter. Sleep aid. Message received.

“I’m fine.” The words feel chalky in my mouth.

“You don’t look fine,” my mother says without turning.

I don’t respond. I step farther into the room and sit at the far end of the dining table, the chair cold even through my jeans.

I stare at the chipped edge of the table’s varnish, a wound left years ago when I had used the surface as a makeshift courtroom, banging toy gavels and shouting fake objections.

I had always won. Even then, I hated being wrong.

Of course, that was before my dear mother decided she had no use for a child in her life.

Now, even silence feels like defeat.

My mother turns finally, drying her hands on a towel.

“You’ve lost weight,” she says.

I blink once. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Not eating? Or just running yourself into the ground again?”

There it is, the softness with bite. My mother’s version of care is an interrogation in pearls and pressed blouses.

I press my fingers into my temples. “It’s just work.”

“It’s always just work. You think I can’t tell when something’s wrong? You walk in like a ghost, and I’m supposed to pretend everything is fine?”

I stand abruptly. “I came here to rest. That’s all.”

“Then rest. But don’t lie to me.”

***

My childhood bedroom hasn’t changed.

The walls are still a dusty pink, the corners faded by time and sunlight. Stuffed animals line the shelf near the window, their plastic eyes dulled by dust and years.

The bedspread is floral, cotton, and neatly tucked. It smells like dryer sheets and nostalgia.

I sit on the edge of the mattress and stare at the room like it belongs to someone else, to a girl who smiles more, dreams bigger, and believes in safety.

I lie back slowly, boots still on, eyes open to the ceiling. The cracks in the paint haven’t moved. Neither have I.

The room feels like a coffin lined with sentiment.

Sleep comes in fits, shallow and mean.

I wake up three times. Once to the sound of the wind rattling the shutters, once to my foster mom’s footsteps down the hallway, and once to silence so thick it feels like someone is standing over me.

By morning, my eyes burn.

I wash my face in the upstairs bathroom, dry my hands on a towel that is too white, and return to my room to dress.

I step out into the garden that afternoon for air.

The rain has lightened to a mist, soft enough to blur the outlines of the flowers my mother still tends like prayer. The woman acts like she is a saint.

I pause by the garden wall. My breath catches. There, tucked in the crook between two bricks, is a rose.

It isn’t my mother’s style. She hates roses and says they are too dramatic. And next to the rose, half-buried in wet soil, is a half-smoked cigarette.

Someone has been here. Someone who isn’t supposed to be.

I stare down at the flower. The dark red petals are slick from rain.

I don’t pick it up or touch the cigarette. I just stand still there remembering how it felt to be watched.

***

By late afternoon, the sky has paled to the sickly grey of oversteeped tea. I sit in the sunroom, though no sun has appeared all day.

Rain streaks down the glass like a script I can’t read. My mother stands in the kitchen again, back turned, chopping vegetables with more force than necessary.

Silence stretches between us like a cracked elastic band held together only by avoidance.

The sound of the knife stops.

“You’re not staying long, are you?” my mother asks, her voice casual, but sharpened.

I don’t answer right away.

“No,” I finally say. “I have to be back Monday.”

My mother turns around, cloth in hand, pressing it over her fingers.

“Running again.”

I look up. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Every time something actually touches you, you vanish. You bury yourself in work or pretend you’re fine or disappear into some crisis that you don’t want to explain. Just like your father.”

“Don’t,” I warn.

My mother steps closer, towel still clenched in her fist.

“You think I don’t notice? You haven’t been sleeping. You’re jumpy. There’s something wrong, and you won’t talk about it. You just come here like this house is some kind of detox center, and I’m supposed to make you tea and pretend not to see it.”

I stand up, slowly. “Because you’ve always been so emotionally available, right? This house doesn’t know how to hold grief; it just buries it under clean linens and judgment.”

She flinches. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it? You ask what’s wrong but don’t really want the answer. You never have. If it doesn’t come with a grade, a salary, or a headline, it’s inconvenient.”

“I’m your mother.”

“Then act like it,” I snap, voice cracking.

My chest heaves. My fingers curl against my sides like claws against my own ribs.

My mother says nothing for a long moment.

She speaks quietly. “You’re scared.”

My throat clenches.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you,” my mother continues. “But whatever it is…don’t bring it here.”

That is the final crack.

I turn, walk out of the sunroom, through the back door, and into the garden.

The grass is wet. My boots sink slightly with each step. The trees, sparse but old, drip steadily onto the stone path that curves toward the edge of the yard. I don’t bother with a jacket.

The cold suits me. Matches the fury that pulses beneath my skin like static.

The wall at the far end of the garden is old brick, softened by ivy and moss. It had been my childhood sanctuary once as a secret place to read, hide, and write terrible poems.

The ivy has grown thicker since then, curling in threads that strangle the fencepost.

I approach it slowly and stop.

The garden has always been mine. And now even this is tainted.

My stalker hasn’t followed me here in body, but he doesn’t need to.

He has already arrived.

My pulse picks up, thunderous now. My chest tightens, but I don’t cry or react. I just turn, fast, and run back toward the house. I slip once on the slick stone, recover, and keep going.

I fling the door open and stop. The phone is ringing.

My mother stands by the wall-mounted receiver, one hand already on the cradle.

She answers it and listens without speaking for a moment too long.

Then she turns her head and looks at me. She has turned pale. She hangs up the phone with a soft click.

“Wrong number,” she says.

I don’t breathe. I don’t believe the lie, but the silence after it is louder than anything I’d ever heard.

***

The rose sits in a teacup now. I don’t know why I put it there. It hadn’t felt right to throw it away. But I couldn’t hold it either. So I place it in the first vessel I see on my mother’s china shelf, fill it with tap water, and leave it there on the edge of the fireplace like it means nothing.

The fireplace has never been used. It is ornamental. The type that builders install in middle-class homes to give a sense of charm but no function. It looks the same as when I was four: clean, shallow, and unlived in.

Like this entire house.

I sit at the kitchen table, arms folded, staring at a plate of toast I have no intention of eating.

My mother moves around me slowly, as if the floorboards might splinter if she steps too hard. Neither of us mentions the phone call. But the silence has turned thick and dense, like the air before a thunderstorm.

My mother stirs her tea for too long, then sets the spoon down with a soft clink. She opens her mouth, closes it, then tries again. “You haven’t asked about your room.”

I glance up. “What about it?”

“It’s just the same,” she says, like that was a kindness. “I’ve kept everything.”

“I know,” I say.

Is she expecting me to thank her? I stand slowly, leave the toast untouched, and walk upstairs.

I close the door behind me and lock it.

Whoever this stalker is, I feel him out there again. In the way my body reacts, preparing itself to be witnessed and known.

It is happening more often now. My reactions belong to him before I even decide to have them. I hate it. And a buried, half-shaped part of me wants more of it.

I wake up that night to nothing but the awareness that I am awake in the middle of a dreamless void. My eyes open to the darkness. I turn toward the dresser and see the teacup on top, still holding the rose.

I hadn’t brought it upstairs, didn’t hear my mother come in, or recall doing it myself. My breath stays slow, but my mind screams.

I get up quietly and pad barefoot to the hallway. I pass my mother’s closed door. Downstairs, the fireplace flickers with faint light. I descend the steps carefully, every board protesting just slightly.

In the living room, the light is coming from the lamp. The one near the fireplace. Perhaps my mother turned it on.

I cross to it, turn the knob gently. The bulb clicks off, and darkness returns. But before it does, I see a single cigarette, perfectly extinguished, resting on the ceramic saucer beneath the teacup.

It wasn’t there earlier. Maybe she picked up smoking?

I scoff. Like alcohol doesn’t already ruin our lives enough.

I roll my eyes as I carry the teacup, cigarette and all, back upstairs,and place it beside my bed. Then I get under the covers and lie flat, staring at the ceiling.

For the first time, I don’t reach for my phone to check my messages or scroll mindlessly for some external noise to drown the internal storm. I just lie there and wait for the next move.

This game is no longer about escape. It is about control. And somewhere inside me, in the marrow, a question is growing, curling inward like a ribbon of smoke.

What if he’s the only one who ever really saw me?