The skyline appeared slowly through the mist — tall, cold, and familiar.
It should've felt like home, but all I saw were ghosts.
Each building, each stretch of asphalt, seemed to whisper a memory. The café where Mark used to wait for me after work. The bookstore where Mia and I spent hours pretending to be grown women with perfect lives. All of it blurred together now, like a film running backward — happiness dissolving into ache.
I parked a few streets away from our apartment. The last time I stood here, I was coming home to him. To us.
Now, I was only returning for what was left of me.
The doorman looked up when I entered the lobby. His name was Walter — kind man, always smiling. Today, his smile faltered. "Mrs. Warren?" he said softly, like saying my name might hurt me.
I nodded, forcing a small curve of my lips. "Hi, Walter."
He hesitated, then leaned forward a little. "Mr. Warren hasn't been around much lately. Everything okay?"
The question pierced, but I kept my tone even. "Yes. Just… taking care of a few things."
He nodded, though his eyes said he didn't believe me. Still, he pressed the elevator button for me and stepped back.
The ride up felt endless. Each floor number blinked, slower than the last. My reflection in the elevator's glass wall looked pale, ghostly. I almost didn't recognize her — the woman who used to laugh, who used to believe in love's permanence.
When the doors slid open, I froze.
The faint scent of his cologne hung in the hallway. I stood there for a moment, clutching my keys like a lifeline, before unlocking the door to what used to be our sanctuary.
The apartment was spotless — too spotless. Someone had been here. Someone had cleaned away the evidence of us.
My shoes echoed on the hardwood as I moved through the living room. The couch where we used to watch movies. The wall with our wedding picture — now bare, the nail still in place.
My chest tightened. I went into the bedroom. The bed was made neatly, too neatly. His side empty, mine untouched.
Then I saw it.
On the dresser — a small, red jewelry box.
I knew it before I opened it.
Inside lay an emerald necklace — the one he must have been planning to give me. The gift he discussed with her.
My knees weakened. I sat on the edge of the bed, holding the box in trembling hands. The irony was cruel. Even his guilt looked beautiful.
A knock startled me. My heart lurched. For a second, I thought—
But when I opened the door, it wasn't Mark.
It was Ethan.
He stood there awkwardly, holding a brown paper bag. "I, uh, brought coffee. Thought you might need it."
For a moment, words failed me. His presence felt too real for this hollow apartment. "How did you—?"
"I called Walter," he admitted. "Told him you might need company. He said you came up."
I let him in. The air shifted. Something about him — calm, gentle — broke through the cold that had wrapped itself around me.
He handed me the cup, then looked around the room. "You kept it the same."
"Not by choice," I murmured. "It just… froze this way."
He nodded slowly. "You don't have to stay here tonight."
I took a sip of the coffee, the warmth almost painful against my throat. "I just wanted to see it. To make sure it was real."
He sat across from me, elbows on his knees, studying me carefully. "And is it?"
I looked down at the necklace still lying open beside me. The stones caught the light — cruelly beautiful. "Yes. Too real."
Silence filled the space between us, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was honest.
"You know," Ethan said after a while, his voice low, "sometimes people break the things they love most — not because they want to, but because they're too small to hold them."
I blinked back the tears threatening to spill. "That's not an excuse."
"No," he said gently. "It's not. But it's a reason."
Something inside me cracked — not in pain this time, but release. The tears came quietly, steady, washing away what anger hadn't already burned.
Ethan didn't move closer, didn't touch me. He just sat there, letting me cry.
When I finally stopped, the air felt lighter.
I wiped my face, laughing bitterly. "You must think I'm pathetic."
He shook his head. "No. I think you're surviving."
The words hit deep.
For the first time, I felt a strange kind of peace. Not healing yet — but the faint beginning of it.
I looked around the room one last time. "Let's go," I said finally.
"Where to?"
"Anywhere but here."
He smiled — not the smile of a man rescuing someone, but of someone walking beside them.
As I closed the door behind us, I didn't look back. The city still held ghosts — but maybe, just maybe, I wasn't one of them anymore.