Page 120 of What You left in Me

I stare at the ceiling and try to catalog what I know:

— My mother is gone.

— Richard is breaking in a room with my last name on the door.

— Finn told the truth like a guillotine.

— I am furious.

— I want him anyway.

If there’s no going back, then forward is the only way.What does forward look like? Me and Finn, in the open? Me, choosing the man who lit the match because he’s also the only one who knows how to hold me when it’s dark? Him, being with the woman whose mother killed his? The anklet cool against myskin saysyou already chose.I pull my knee up and press the metal into my palm until the circle bites. The sting steadies me.

I turn on my side and watch the door like it might move. I tell myself I won’t go to him. Not tonight. I can’t face him. What would I say to him?I’m sorry my mother killed yours?How do you even say that? I tell myself if he comes, I’ll send him away. I tell myself a lot of things. I’m very good at telling.

In the morning, I’ll have to be a person again, and knock on Richard’s door with tea and say, “Walk?” I’ll call Penny back and let her swear on my behalf. I’ll have to open my laptop and be a woman who can function in a world with HR portals and references. I will have to own what I did, what I’m doing, what I want.

But right now, I let the ache exist without giving it instructions. I let last night replay until the edges blur and the voices go underwater. I close my eyes and see Finn’s face at the table, the terrifying calm of a man who chose to be the hurricane. I am furious with him. But I am furious for him. My mother killed his mother.

How does that even feel? How do we talk about it? I’m so ashamed, I don’t think I could ever look him in the eyes again.

The house feels like it’s holding its breath. Every wall looks speckless, too polite, like it’s pretending not to remember last night. I’ve been pacing for ten minutes straight, trying to find a spot that doesn’t hum with leftover shouting. Spoiler: there isn’t one.

So, I decided to go to the garden, which is pretending to be harmless—white hydrangeas, clipped hedges, the lake doing its best impression of a postcard—but my stomach is still a knot, and I’m trying to remember how to breathe without counting.

I pick a leaf to death. It didn’t deserve it. Neither did I, technically, but here we are.

“Ariane.”

I don’t jump, which is progress or proof that I’m numb. His voice finds me first, low and controlled, and then he does, footsteps on gravel, a shadow long and certain across the grass. I keep my back to him because I don’t trust my face. It’s probably doing something unflattering like crumpling and glowing red.

“Go away,” I say, very calmly, as if I’m a queen and this is a decree, not a plea.

He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. Finn never met a boundary he didn’t want to lean on until it broke. He steps into my periphery, sleeves shoved up, throat bare, that black shirt that looks like sin learned to tailor. The bruise under his eyes from no sleep makes him look more dangerous, which feels rude.

“Don’t—” My voice cracks. I swallow and try again. “Don’t do the thing where you stand there and look like you understand me. You don’t.”

His head tilts, just a fraction. “I understand you better than anyone in the world.”

“Congratulations,” I snap, breath hitching. “You win the prize for Best Interpreter of Ariane, and the prize is, oh look, total devastation.”

He exhales through his nose, the ghost of a humorless laugh. “If you want to hit me, hit me. You’ll feel better.”

“Don’t youdarebe generous.” I swipe a hand across my cheek, furious with the tears I told to behave. “You could’ve told me privately. You could’ve, God, Finn, you humiliated her. You humiliated me.”

His eyes go flat and bright at once, like knives catching light. “She killed my mother, Ariane. Did you want me to write her a eulogy instead?”

“That’s not what I…” I bite down on the rest because the words feel like I’m chewing broken glass. “You took a grenade to my family and then stood there to watch the pieces fly. You liked it.”

“I liked the truth,” he says evenly. “There’s a difference.”

“You don’t get to act like a savior when all you do is ruin things.” The heat in my chest breaks its banks. “You didn’t just expose her, you torched Richard… you torchedme. You threwmeon that table with her and lit the match.”

“And what would you have done with mercy?” he asks, infuriatingly quiet. “Slept with it? Worn it to dinner? Your mother hired someone to poison a woman and then came into this house and wore grief like jewelry. You want me to be polite about that?”

“Stop.” I step into him because I can’t help it, furious dog to a fence. “Stop explaining my mother like she’s a case study. Stop explainingme. You don’t get to narrate my life and then congratulate yourself for getting all the foreshadowing right.”

He holds my gaze. “I’m not narrating. I’m ending a story that should’ve ended years ago.”