Page 99 of What You left in Me

Ariane’s face rose in my mind, my Ariane, sleeping in the house of the woman who built her life on my mother’s corpse.

Now, I have what I need. Now, I can burn Eleanor Wagner to the fucking ground.

Chapter 30 – Ariane – The Weight of Guilt

It starts with Penny tearing my blankets off like she’s rescuing a hostage. She plants her hands on her hips and stares down at me as if she’s a judge and I’m on trial for crimes against daylight.

“Up,” she says. “You look like a ghost who lost the instruction manual.”

“I prefer ‘hauntingly chic,’” I mumble into the pillow, then roll onto my back and squint at her. She’s in sunglasses and a blazer that means business, hair scooped into a messy knot that probably took twenty minutes to make look that effortless.

“Out,” she says. “Coffee. People. Sun. We’re not letting the Wagner mausoleum eat you for lunch.”

She’s right. The house has learned my pulse. It beats with the grandfather clocks and the slow wheeze of the koi pond pump and the softer sound of Richard’s cautious laughter. It knows when I turn in bed. It knows when I pause outside Finn’s door at 2 a.m. and pretend I’m just thirsty.

“Fine,” I tell her, flinging the covers back. “But if Mom calls me and uses the words ‘family image’ again, I’m faking my death.”

“I’ll print the obit,” Penny says, rifling through my closet and producing jeans, a soft sweater, and dignity. “Wear this and put on some mascara. We’re going to remind your face how to be a face.”

I dress. I even brush my hair like a person. I tug the cuff of my jeans low out of habit, even though the anklet is slim and dark and probably invisible unless you’re looking for it. I still feel the small burden, the way my skin knows it’s there the way youknow your own name. The knowledge makes my heartbeat skip a tiny, traitorous beat. I hate that. I kind of love it. I hate that too.

We leave through the side door, dodging Mom’s orbit and Richard’s nap. The driveway is littered with wet leaves trying to cosplay as elegance. Penny drives, because only she can drive her beaten up car. The town is itself is filled with quiet storefronts, the same librarian putting up the same flyer for a poetry night no one will attend, and an old man sweeping a step with a broom that’s mostly nostalgia. The lake flashes between the houses like a whispered secret.

The café we’re about to go to sits at the corner of Second and somebody-who-donated-a-park-bench, a skinny building that used to be a tailor’s shop before the town decided espresso was a personality. It smells like burnt sugar and cinnamon. The floors creak when you walk and everyone pretends not to hear it. A chalkboard menu tilts above the counter, handwriting fat and loopy:Salted Caramel Latte—worth selling your soul.Underneath someone added(no refunds)in different chalk.

We order. The barista has a septum ring and a cardigan held together by hope. She tells us our names even though we know them and I don’t realize how good it feels to be recognized without being judged. To be a person and not a headline waiting for ink.

We claim a small round table near the window, the glass warm where the sun lays its hand. Outside, a dog ties itself into knots over a pigeon. Inside, people talk about nothing and everything: a missing mixing bowl, a football game, a neighbor’s mysterious boyfriend who is probably just a dentist. The ordinary sounds reaches inside my chest and shakes me like a snow globe; the flurry settles into something softer.

“You’re already less corpse-y,” Penny says, cracking a packet of sugar with surgical precision. “Color in the cheeks. Pupils returning to legal size.”

“Thank you for your medical expertise,” I say, fingers wrapped around the hot cup like it’s a hand I can hold.

She sips, then levels me with her therapist stare. (Not a therapist, just very good at pretending to be one.) “Okay. Talk. Start with the headline and work backward.”

I stare at the cinnamon foam and try to find words that don’t sound like a crime. “I made a mistake,” I say finally.

“Did you kill someone?” she deadpans.

“No.”

“Then, it’s probably survivable. What happened?”

I twist the cup. “Finn happened.”

She freezes with the cup halfway to her lips. “Finn… as in…”

“Yes.”

“Your… stepbrother.”

“Penny.”

“Your stepbrother Finn who is older than you by more than a decade?”

“I’m not elaborating.”

“Okay, okay.” She blinks, processing, then exhales like someone coming up from a dive. “Do I get… details? Or do I need to plug my ears and scream la-la-la like we’re twelve?”