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Chapter Forty-Three

Calum

My life has been bitter since I last heard her voice. As if her presence in my life has been a journey of precious and violent revenge.

The air shakes the window panes, the soft howling slipping through the cracks like a protest.

“Don’t leave me here where I can’t find you…” I moan into the void. “How can I excise pain that radiates through my body, that torments my blood, that clings to my bones?”

Her phantom touch is like a vibration through my skin.

I feel her everywhere–in bed next to me, a lingering comfort that never quite fulfills.

Annabel–my phantom lover, sent to destroy me.

The last remaining pieces of me erode the longer I cling to someone that’s already gone.

The realization hits me that the ghost of what could have been is more painful than what was, the emotional echoes of a relationship that won’t let go.

The endless cycles of regret and obsession, repressed grief and unresolved emotional damage, my new addiction.

I’ve become my pain, loving her my new identity, heartbreak has trained my brain to crave the very thing I need to escape .

“I miss you so much, Annabel, it’s left a you-shaped hole in my soul.

But if I stop missing you, I lose you. I’ll forget that you were real, that even for a while, you were mine.

” I crush my hands over my face as anguish descends.

“I never deserved you, I was never enough–but for a time you made me feel.”

I think of her heartbreak when she found out Jonathan married Brittany, is this how she felt? Broken? Ruined by love? Lost in her pain? I refuse to believe she loved him–he was only a distraction–I’m sure of it. We were more. We were always more.

I draw a fingertip along the curve of her waist, the unfinished painting of her in the garden, the faint outline of her nipples through her slip as morning sun bathes her body in warmth.

Missing her might cost me everything–life, happiness, hope–but still, she haunts the edges of my mind.

I’ve lost so much, losing even a single memory feels like another death I can’t take.

My eyes drift to the mirror, the one that always reflects her.

I grind my teeth as unspoken rage pummels my system.

I grip the nearest object–a clean canvas propped at my feet–and hurl it against the mirror.

It doesn’t crack, so I grab the canvas again and angle the sharp edge at the center of my reflection.

I beat against the glass, hot tears washing down my cheeks and blurring my vision as I beat the canvas over and over until pain throbs through my hand and streaks of crimson paint the walls and mirror, shards cutting my fist and decorating the canvas in splatters of red.

The mirror is irreparably broken, the glass covering the floor around my feet. My breathing comes out in frantic gasps as the fractured mirror finally matches my broken heart.

I hate her. I love her. I need her. I need to be free of her.

I don’t think I ever will be. I feel haunted, hopeless, maimed by her love.

For the first time, regret crawls through my system.

I should have turned away from her that first day on the beach, recognized her love would ruin me.

I should have done so many things, but instead I’m standing here, stumbling through the architecture of my heartbreak, trying to piece together my soul and wondering if instead of finding myself in her love, I lost myself. I know I’ll never love again.

My muscles feel weak, like they’ve finally atrophied from heartbreak.

I drop into the chair in the corner, allowing my eyes to fall closed.

Her dark features materialize in my mind, her wry smile as she takes in the unfinished painting of her in the garden.

Her last words echo in my mind before she walked through the gate and out of my life for the last time.

“Finish it, Calum. For me. For us.”

I push myself out of the chair with sheer will, moving out of the cottage hoping that fresh air will clear my mind.

The sun’s too bright. Even with sunglasses digging into the bridge of my nose and the salt wind stinging my skin, it feels like the sky is trying to split open and swallow me whole.

I walk the shore anyway, barefoot, the sand cold and wet and unfamiliar.

Grief has a weight to it—wet wool soaked through, heavy in places you didn’t know you could carry.

I pretend for a second she might be ahead, just out of view, dancing through the surf with her slip trailing behind her, laughing like I haven’t buried her ashes and left what remains of her in a graveyard not far from here.

I round the bend where the cliffs rise sharp and gray, and I almost don’t notice her—curled near a driftwood log, knees tucked in, chin resting on them.

“Brittany?”

She startles. Blinks. Wipes her face with the sleeve of an oversized cream sweater.

“Oh.” Her voice cracks. “Hi.”

She stands slowly, like she’s been there a long time, legs stiff and unsure. I haven’t seen her since the funeral. She looks thinner. Pale. Hair in a messy knot.

I step closer, cautious. “You okay?”

She gives a small, pitiful laugh, but her eyes brim again. “Not really.”

“Yeah. Me neither.” I look down at the sand, then back at her. “You don’t look good.”

She flinches slightly, like I’ve slapped her. Then her mouth twists into something between a smile and a grimace. “Thanks, Calum. Always knew how to charm a girl.”

I snort quietly. It’s the first sound that’s almost human to come out of me in days.

“I meant…” I rub the back of my neck. “You look like you’ve been crying.”

She nods. Bites her lip. “I’m sorry. I should’ve come by sooner. I just—I couldn’t. I kept thinking about it, about you. About her.”

Her. Annabel.

My lungs tighten.

“I keep imagining the moment all was lost–wondering if we could have done something differently,” she sobs.

“I took the semester off,” Brittany adds softly.

“My dad’s furious. Says I’m throwing away my future, but…

” She looks out at the water. “This is the only place that feels like anything right now. Like healing, maybe. I don’t know. ”

I follow her gaze. The tide is rolling in, eating the beach inch by inch.

“I get that,” I say. “I can’t leave. I don’t sleep anywhere else now. I just stay at the cottage. Waiting for nothing.”

She wipes her cheeks again, but her hands tremble.

I notice how much she’s shaking and for the first time, I wonder if she’s cold or if it’s something else. Something deeper .

“You were close,” I murmur, though I already know the answer. “You and Annabel.”

“We grew up like sisters,” she says, voice thick. “She was everything I wasn’t. Brave. Loud. Beautiful. She made people notice her.”

I glance at Brittany—her soft features, her barely-there freckles, the way she crumples in on herself. A shadow to Annabel’s spotlight.

“You were beautiful too,” I say quietly. “You still are.”

Her eyes flick up to mine, startled.

And then she shakes her head, almost violently, as if she can’t accept anything kind.

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” she whispers.

Her voice catches, and she looks like she wants to say something else—wants to spill it, whatever it is—but swallows it down. She wraps her arms around herself and stares out at the water again like it might speak for her.

I don’t press. I can’t.

My grief is a stormcloud and I can barely see past the edges of it. I haven’t slept in days. Haven’t eaten. My head is pounding.

“The sun’s killing me today,” I say, squinting up at it. “Sorry, Brittany. I should probably head back.”

She nods quickly. “Of course. I didn’t mean to?—”

“No.” I reach out and touch her arm lightly. “It’s good to see you. I’m glad you’re here.”

She looks at where my hand rests against her sweater. There’s something unsaid behind her eyes. Something deeper than crushing grief. A secret. A silence too loud.

But again, she doesn’t speak.

“Maybe I’ll see you around,” I offer. “I come out here a lot.”

“Yeah.” She blinks fast. “Me too.”

I nod once, then turn to go. The walk back feels longer.

Heavier. Like her sadness has followed me, settled on my shoulders beside mine.

The unbearable weight of our shared loss is suffocating.

As I walk away I know I won’t see her again, I can’t, she’s too close to the woman I loved.

Too much a reminder of what I’ll never have again.

I don’t look back.