Grief is supposed to come in waves. That's what they say.
But mine didn't. It came in smoke, thick, bitter, clinging to everything I once thought was real.
I didn't sleep.
I lay there, eyes open, watching the shadows shift on the ceiling. Every creak of the floorboards felt like a scream. Every tick of the vintage wall clock Cassian imported from Prague sounded like a countdown to madness.
I should have cried.
But there were no tears left in me.
Cassian's scent still lingered on his pillow, a mockery of memory. And Zirelle… I couldn't even let my mind form her name without feeling the urge to punch through something.
My fingers curled into the sheets.
It was my anniversary.
And I spent it in silence, while the two people I trusted most defiled everything I built.
I used to think betrayal would come like thunder, loud and explosive. But it doesn't. It seeps in like gas, invisible, until you're already choking and too late to escape.
By morning, I wasn't the same.
I dressed with precision, like a machine.. Black turtleneck. Slacks. My sharpest coat. The one Cassian always said made me look "too cold."
Perfect.
I twisted my hair into a knot and put on the diamond studs he gave me on our second anniversary.
Let them sparkle like lies.
Downstairs, the house was quiet. Zirelle was gone. Cassian, too. Their absence screamed louder than their presence ever could.
Good.
Let them be cowards.
I walked past the kitchen, poured myself a glass of water, and stood by the window. Sunlight filtered through the curtains. Too soft. Too gentle for a morning like this.
On the counter, Cassian's favorite mug sat empty. Mr. Ambition, it read.
I considered smashing it.
But no. I wasn't impulsive.
Rage is louder when it's quiet.
By noon, I was at Solace Heights Cemetery.
I hadn't visited in nearly a year.
My heels crunched softly over gravel as I moved past rows of carved names. Some too old to remember. Some too new to bear.
I stopped at the fourth row. Third plot.
My fingers brushed the gravestone.
"Amelia Wynver. 1953–2007. Fierce until the end."
My mother.
She wasn't warm. But she was honest. Brutally so. She taught me how to hold a wine glass with elegance and how to gut a liar with a single sentence.
She would've never let this happen.
I crouched down, heart beating harder than it had in hours.
"Guess what, Mother?" I whispered. "You were right. Again."
I traced the engraved letters, the chill of the stone grounding me.
"They used me. Both of them. Like I was furniture. Like I was stupid."
A gust of wind swept past, lifting my coat.
"I could disappear today and they'd move on by the weekend."
And then, my voice dropped.
"But I won't disappear. I'll become unforgettable."
A sharpness bloomed in my chest, not pain. Clarity.
Back home, I sat at my vanity, watching the woman in the mirror.
She was no longer mourning.
She was becoming dangerous.
I opened the drawer where I kept the journal. Flipped past the pages of heartbreak. Skimmed the notes I had jotted: Zirelle's little slips, Cassian's cover stories, the trips that didn't line up.
I wasn't imagining things. I never had been.
They made me doubt myself, and I let them.
Not anymore.
I wrote across a fresh page:
Phase One begins tomorrow. I won't scream. I'll strategize. And when I strike, it won't be loud. It'll be permanent.
I closed the journal and exhaled.
Then I picked up my phone.
I scrolled past Cassian's name. Past Zirelle's.
And tapped on the name I hadn't touched in years.
Calista Rhen.
My old roommate. My old backbone.
The one person who ever saw through Cassian and Zirelle and never pretended to like either.
I hesitated only a second before sending the message:
"Are you free to talk tomorrow? I need a friend who tells the truth."
Three dots appeared almost instantly.
"Always. You okay?"
I stared at the screen.
Then typed:
"No. But I'm done pretending I am."
That night, I couldn't sleep. So I went into the guest room. Not the one Zirelle desecrated, but the one I'd been meaning to convert into a reading nook. I curled up on the chaise lounge with a blanket, letting my mind wander.
Memories came in fragments. Zirelle sneaking into my dorm room in tears after her breakups. Cassian kissing my forehead the day after my mother's funeral. The three of us laughing over burnt toast during our first Christmas together.
I wanted to rip those memories apart.
Instead, I catalogued them. Stored them.
Because knowledge was power. And I was going to weaponize everything they ever gave me.
The door creaked open around midnight.
Cassian.
Of course he came back after dark, like the coward he was.
I listened as his footsteps padded down the hallway, not toward me, but toward our bedroom. His bedroom now.
He paused outside the guest room door, but didn't knock. Didn't dare.
I heard the creak of our bedroom door, the click of the light switch, the rustle of fabric as he undressed.
I imagined him walking around the space we once shared, as if it were still sacred. As if he hadn't defiled it.
The water ran in the ensuite bathroom.
He was washing her off, as if that could undo what he did.
Coward.
He emerged ten minutes later, wrapped in a towel.
His eyes met mine.
"Are you going to say anything?"
I turned my head slightly.
"What would you like me to say, Cassian? 'Congratulations on your anniversary blowjob?'"
He flinched.
And then, unbelievably, he had the gall to sigh. "It's not that simple, Sera."
"No," I said, sitting up slowly. "It's simple. You cheated. With my best friend. In my home. On our anniversary."
He didn't deny it.
Didn't apologize.
"I haven't been happy for a long time," he said instead.
My fingers curled against the bedsheet.
"And you thought sticking your dick in Zirelle would fix that?"
"I didn't plan for it to happen…"
"Don't," I said, voice cold. "Don't insult what little intelligence you think I have left."
His jaw clenched. "This is exactly why we're broken. You turn everything into a war."
"No," I said quietly. "But I'm about to."