For one breath—one impossible, splintered moment—she's there.
Emma.
Her head tilted slightly, the same way she used to when she was listening to something only she could hear. Her fingers twitch in her lap, brushing the hem of her red dress.
I take a step toward her. "Emma?"
She lifts her head, slow, like it hurts. Her eyes—God, they're exactly as I remember. Warm brown, flecked with gold. But behind them, there's something deeper now. Something hollow.
"You came back," she whispers.
"I—" My voice breaks. "You're not—"
She smiles, and it's the same smile that used to stop my heart. "You kept the glove."
Then I blink.
And she's gone.
Just gone.
The air collapses in on itself, and suddenly the room's empty again—silent except for the soft hum of the fridge and the pounding of my heart. The two gloves are still on the table, perfectly folded, untouched.
I press my palms to my eyes. Hard.
It's happening again.
The flashes. The bleeding of memories into things that shouldn't be real. I tell myself it's guilt, or grief, or maybe both—but part of me knows that whatever that thing was, it wasn't just in my head.
When I open my eyes, I'm somewhere else.
It's summer. The kind of summer that clings to your skin and makes the air taste sweet.
We're at the lake—Emma and I. She's standing knee-deep in the water, hair sticking to her shoulders, holding her shoes in one hand. She's laughing because I told her the water was warm, and she doesn't believe me.
"You're such a liar," she calls, splashing water at me.
"I said warmer than it looks," I shoot back.
"You said warm!" she laughs again, the sound bright enough to chase away every dark thing I've ever known.
She wades back toward the shore, water dripping off her dress. Red, even then. She always said it made her feel alive.
"I don't get why you hate the color," she says, wringing her hair out. "It's passion. Life. Love."
I smile, lying beside her in the grass. "It's loud. Unforgiving. Doesn't know when to stop."
"Neither do you," she teases.
She's right. She always was.
The day fades around us. She leans into me, eyes closed, tracing little circles on my wrist with her thumb. "Promise me," she murmurs.
"Promise you what?"
"That you won't shut yourself off when things get hard. You run from everything that scares you."
"I don't run," I say.
She smiles without opening her eyes. "Yes, you do."
The memory shatters, and I'm back in the motel room, breath uneven, the smell of damp leather in the air.
The gloves are still there.
But now, beside them, something else—a photo. One I haven't seen in years.
Us.
That same day at the lake. She's laughing, arm around my neck, water on her cheeks like tiny jewels. And behind her, just barely visible, a faint flare of red light near the edge of the frame.
I don't remember that part.
My throat tightens. I run my thumb across the picture, tracing her smile, the little dimple in her left cheek.
"Why now?" I whisper.
No answer. Only the creak of the floorboards.
I turn the photo over.
There's something written in her handwriting—delicate, looping cursive.
It wasn't an accident.
My stomach twists. "What do you mean?"
The walls seem to breathe. The air grows thick again.
"You know what you did," her voice whispers from nowhere—and everywhere.
I stumble back, knocking over the chair. My pulse roars in my ears.
"No," I say. "No, I tried to save you."
"You left me."
The lights flicker once, twice, then die.
In the dark, I can hear her—barefoot steps across the floor, slow, deliberate.
Then warmth against my ear. Her voice, softer this time.
"Come find me, Nathan."
A cold wind sweeps through the room, scattering the photo across the floor. When I turn toward the sound, the gloves are gone.
Only a single drop of red remains on the table—bright, glistening, and far too familiar.