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Chapter Two

Calum

The waves crash against the cliffs outside, relentless and deafening.

Holiday House groans under the weight of the storm, its wooden bones shifting like they’re alive.

I sit in the dim glow of a single lamp, staring at the sketchbook splayed open on the coffee table.

The lines blur, smudged by my hand, by the humidity, by my own carelessness.

I haven’t touched a pencil since… since her.

The silence between the bursts of thunder is worse than the noise.

It’s not true silence—it’s her absence, pressing against the walls, filling the spaces where her laughter once echoed.

The air smells faintly of salt and jasmine, her perfume clinging to the fabric of the couch.

No matter how many storms roll through, she lingers.

Annabel would have hated this weather. She hated anything that disrupted her carefully curated aesthetic. “A storm should know its place,” she’d said once, peering through the rain-specked windows with a pout. “Don’t you think, Calum? It’s so… vulgar.”

I didn’t answer her then, just like I don’t answer her now. But I can still see her, turning to me with that sly smile, daring me to disagree, daring me to ruin the fantasy she painted over every moment.

My phone buzzes on the table, shattering the stillness. I glance at the screen—Jonathan. His name sits there, glowing faintly, a reminder of everything I’d rather forget.

I don’t answer.

The phone goes dark again, leaving me alone with the waves and the wind and the ghosts I can’t seem to exorcise.

Annabel always said I had too many ghosts, even before she became one.

“Your problem, Calum,” she said, sprawled across the chaise in the studio, a glass of wine dangling precariously from her fingers, “is that you’re too attached to the past. You should be like me—live in the moment.”

“You don’t live in the moment,” I’d replied, mixing paint on the palette, the colors bleeding into each other in ways that didn’t make sense but felt right. “You live in the idea of a moment.”

She laughed, her head tilting back, the sunlight catching her hair and turning it a vibrant blue-black. “What’s the difference?”

I didn’t have an answer then, and I don’t have one now.

I leave the sketchbook behind and wander through the house, the floorboards creaking beneath my steps.

The walls are lined with old portraits—ancestors who built this house, this legacy, this burden.

Their eyes follow me as I move, judgmental and unyielding.

Annabel used to call them “the ghosts in the walls.” She said they whispered to her at night, their voices soft and conspiratorial.

“They hate me,” she told me once, her tone light but her eyes dark. “They think I’m ruining you.”

“Are they wrong?” I asked, half-teasing, half-serious .

She didn’t answer, just smiled that secretive smile and walked away.

The kitchen is as I left it, the countertops cluttered with empty wine bottles and half-finished sketches. Her favorite teacup sits in the sink, the lipstick stain on the rim fading but still visible. I pick it up, tracing the edge with my thumb, the porcelain cold against my skin.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say aloud, my voice barely more than a whisper. It feels foolish, talking to an object, to the ghost of a woman who isn’t really gone, not in the ways that matter.

The storm grows louder, the wind howling through the cracks in the windows.

I grab a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet and pour myself a glass, the liquid amber is sharp against my tongue.

It doesn’t dull the ache, but it gives me something to focus on, something other than the memories clawing at the edges of my mind.

Annabel was always the focus. She drew people to her effortlessly, like a flame that didn’t know it could burn. She was radiant, maddening, impossible. And I loved her for it. I hated her for it too.

We ran into each other once at one of those gallery openings I used to despise—too much wine, too many egos, too many people pretending to care about the art while caring only about themselves.

She was wearing white, her back held straight like a ballerina, so poised and elegant, different from the laid-back woman I’d been introduced to on the beach earlier that summer.

But her hair–still flowing like a waterfall down her back in that way that looked careless but wasn’t.

She stood in front of one of my paintings, her head tilted as if she were trying to solve a puzzle only she could see.

“Do you like it?” I asked, coming up behind her.

She didn’t turn around, didn’t even flinch. “I haven’t decided yet.”

It was the beginning of everything.

I finish the whiskey and pour another, the burn in my throat a small comfort. The waves crash louder now, or maybe I’m just imagining it. Maybe everything feels louder in her absence.

The living room feels too small, too suffocating, so I take the bottle and glass and head down the hall to the bedroom. Our bedroom. The door creaks as I push it open, and the scent of her perfume hits me like a punch to the gut.

Her robe is still draped over the chair, her jewelry scattered across the vanity. The bed is unmade, the sheets tangled like they were the last time we slept here. I sit on the edge, the mattress sagging under my weight, and stare at the floor.

She wasn’t always like this. There was a time when she was softer, more open. Before the parties, before the arguments, before the weight of everything crushed us.

“Do you think we’ll be happy here?” she asked me once, standing by the window, her silhouette outlined against the fading light.

“I think we’ll make it work,” I said, because that’s what you’re supposed to say.

She turned to me, her eyes searching mine, and for a moment, she looked almost afraid. “You always say that.”

“Because it’s true.”

She didn’t believe me. I could see it in the way her shoulders tensed, the way she looked away, the way she clung to the glass of wine in her hand like it was the only thing keeping her grounded.

The glass in my hand trembles, and I set it down before it shatters. The storm has quieted now, the wind dying down to a whisper, the waves softer against the cliffs. The silence is back, heavy and oppressive.

I lie back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. The shadows shift in the dim light, shapes forming and dissolving like they’re alive. I can almost hear her voice, soft and teasing, pulling me back to a time when things were simpler. When we were simpler.

But simplicity was never in the cards for us. Not with her fire, not with my darkness, not with the way we consumed each other like it was the only thing that mattered.

I close my eyes, the whiskey lulling me into a restless haze. The memories come unbidden, sharp and vivid, dragging me under.

“You’re too much, Calum,” she said once, her voice a mix of frustration and something softer. “You feel everything too deeply.”

“And you don’t feel enough,” I shot back, the words harsher than I intended.

She didn’t respond, just looked at me with those wide, unblinking eyes that saw through everything, that saw through me. And then she smiled, that infuriating, intoxicating smile that made me hate her and love her in equal measure.

The storm has passed by the time I wake, the first light of dawn creeping through the windows. The house is quiet now, the only sound the distant cry of gulls over the water. I sit up, my head heavy, my chest tighter than it should be.

The ghosts are still here, lurking in the corners, waiting for me to acknowledge them. I ignore them, for now. There’s work to be done, a life to be sorted, a woman to be mourned.

But not today.

Today, I’ll drink my coffee, stare at the sea, and pretend that she’s just out for a walk, that she’ll come back, that everything will be okay.

Because the alternative is unthinkable.