"Wake up, Allison! Your mum wants to talk to you!" Sarah's voice cut through the thin veil of sleep, yanking me out of a dream already spiraling into something dark.
It was the same kind of dream I'd been having in twisted variations ever since my date last Friday with Lucien. At this point, it felt less like dreaming and more like drowning—like my own mind was conspiring against me.
In today's dream, Lucien's mouth was on mine—soft, hungry, unrelenting. My body melted into his, heat flooding me in waves. Then, without warning, his eyes flared molten yellow, burning straight through me. His face began to shift, bones stretching beneath his skin, white hair sprouting. Around us, the forest bent and twisted—the trees groaning as if caught in some violent storm. Somewhere in the dark, wolves howled.
I couldn't even remember how we'd gotten there. One moment it was dinner, the next we were kissing in the shadows. And then he was changing—becoming something else. Terror ripped through me. My body bolted before my mind could, legs carrying me into the dark, heart slamming against my ribs—
Right until Sarah's voice pierced it, shattering the nightmare.
I shot upright, breath snagging in my throat. My heart hammered like I'd sprinted miles. "Please… just give me a second, let me reboot," I whispered, voice ragged. My hands went instinctively to my chest and forehead, as if I could hold myself together with sheer will. I forced myself to breathe—in, out, slow and steady.
Gradually, my pulse eased, but the fear lingered, pulsing low in my veins like an aftershock.
That night's memories surged back like they'd happened only hours ago—the candlelit table, Lucien's intoxicating scent, the mystery of his eyes, the howls that still echoed in my head. Fear. Desire. Suspicion. The weight of it all had pressed so heavily on me I'd stumbled home numb and exhausted, collapsing into bed without even changing, my stomach knotted too tight to eat, my mind too heavy to think.
The next day I waited—and waited—for a message from Lucien. Nothing came.
By the second day, the silence gnawed so deeply I caved. Pride was a fragile thing when every beat of my heart seemed tethered to him. I typed out a message, swallowing my shame, and pressed send.
No reply.
Days blurred. My life felt suspended, as if everything outside his absence had lost its meaning. I could barely eat. Books lay open before me but the words refused to form, slipping from my comprehension. Assignments piled up untouched, group discussions buzzed around me in empty chatter, and all I could do was drift in a daze, hollow and frantic, my mind splintering piece by piece.
By the time a week had passed, the weight of his silence was unbearable.
Now, in the hazy wash of morning—or was it already noon?—it hit me with crushing force. A week. Seven days. Seven nights. No word. Not a single trace of him.
Was this it? Was it really over before it had even begun? Was Lucien truly never going to speak to me again?
The thought hollowed me out. The silence wasn't silence anymore—it was a knife. It was walking death. I felt he was gaslighting me by his absence, and I was unraveling beneath it.
If his purpose was to mend me, he hadn't. Right now, I would do anything just to hear from him. Anything. I would apologize, even when I knew I wasn't wrong. I would beg, if that was what it took. I would go back, stay the night, surrender everything—anything—to break this silence.
Because without him, I was already breaking. And it didn't help that his absence was ripping open the old wounds Jacob had left behind—the ones I still refused to face, the conversations I still refused to have.
Some twisted part of me wanted to give Jacob another chance, to use him as the perfect distraction to erase Lucien. The irony cut deep—Jacob was the very man I had tried to burn out of my system by running straight into Lucien's arms.
It was a brutal, humiliating full circle—life mocking me, showing just how easily I could stumble back into the same fire I once thought I had escaped.
"Allison! It's been five minutes!" Sarah's voice floated from the other side of the door, sharp and impatient, dragging me back to reality.
Groaning, I rubbed the grit of sleep from my eyes and flung my legs over the side of the bed. "Sarah, can't you give me one moment?" I muttered, my voice muffled under the heavy blanket still clinging to me. Saturdays were meant for sleeping in, for hiding under the covers until the day felt safe enough to face. Not for—whatever this was.
The door creaked open, and before I could even stand, Sarah shoved her phone into my hands. I nearly dropped it.
"Sarah!" I yelped, blinking in confusion. "What the—why are you shoving this at me?"
"Because your mom wants to talk to you. Did you really think I was making it up?" she shot back, exasperated. Her blonde hair fell loose down her back, a baggy sweatshirt hanging off one shoulder. She smelled faintly of flour, like she'd already been in the kitchen while I was tangled in nightmares.
My brow furrowed as I pressed the phone to my ear, still half in a daze.
"Allison?" My mother's voice came through the line, familiar and warm.
I froze, tension pooling in my stomach at the nickname she always used, the one I hated.
"Little Pear."
The words wrapped around me like a memory I could never escape. When I was two, I'd lost a doll named Little Pear. In my tiny, muddled mind, I'd decided I was Little Pear. I'd insisted everyone call me that, and for some reason, no one in my family had ever stopped. Not even now.
"Hey, Mama," I sighed, sinking back onto the edge of my bed, the phone cool against my cheek. "How are you?" I asked, my voice weighted with exhaustion.
"I'm good, sweetheart."
"How's Dad? How's…"
"Everyone's holding up well here, Allison. But we miss you. When are you planning to visit?"