The hidden door groans open into blackness.
A puff of stale, still air meets me.
It smells like dust.
And old paper.
And something else.
Something faintly floral.
Like flowers left in a vase for too long.
My hand hovers over the threshold.
This is wrong.
This is a boundary I should not cross.
This is a private space.
A locked room.
And you are a therapist who specializes in unlocking them, a voice in my head whispers.
It's a weak justification.
An excuse born of desperation.
But it's enough.
My desire to understand is stronger than my fear of what I'll find.
I take a step into the darkness.
My hand feels along the wall for a light switch.
My fingers find it.
I flick it on.
And the world stops.
It's a bedroom.
But it's not a guest room.
It's not a storage space.
It's… a time capsule.
A perfectly preserved moment of a life interrupted.
The bed is unmade, the white duvet thrown back as if someone just climbed out of it.
A silk robe is draped over a chair.
On the vanity, an array of makeup brushes and perfume bottles sit waiting, collecting a fine layer of dust.
My eyes are drawn to the corner of the room.
An artist's easel stands there.
On it rests an unfinished canvas.
A portrait of Theo.
He's not smiling.
He's just looking, his expression rendered in charcoal with a haunting, unfinished quality.
Jars of paintbrushes and tubes of oil paint cover a nearby table.
This was her studio.
Her sanctuary.
Her room.
This is Sarah's room.
My clinical brain kicks in, a desperate attempt to create distance.
To make this an observation, not an intrusion.
Subject exhibits signs of complicated grief.
A pathological attachment to the deceased.
The room is a physical manifestation of his refusal to let go.
A shrine.
It's not just the house that's a monument to her.
It's this secret, hidden, beating heart of the house.
He hasn't just failed to move on.
He has actively stopped time in this room.
He has preserved her last moments, her last breath, her last unfinished painting.
The air feels heavy.
Sacred.
And I am committing a sacrilege just by breathing it.
I feel a profound, aching sadness.
Not for Theo.
For her.
For the vibrant, artistic life that was lived within these four walls, now trapped in amber by a grief so powerful it has warped reality.
The man I am fake-married to is not just volatile.
He's not just a chaos agent.
He is a man haunted on a level I have never encountered in a textbook.
And I am sleeping down the hall.
My gaze falls on the nightstand beside the unmade bed.
There's a lamp.
A glass of water, now just a dusty ring on the wood.
And a book.
It's a simple, leather-bound journal, its corners worn soft with use.
A diary.
My heart starts to pound, a slow, heavy drum.
Don't.
This is the line, Elara.
You can observe the room. That's data.
But her thoughts… her words… that's a violation.
But Dr. Harrison's voice echoes in my head.
Sarah Jenkins didn't commit suicide.
Was he lying?
Was he manipulating me?
Or did he know something?
The answer might be in this book.
The need to know, to understand the truth of the mystery I'm now trapped in, is a physical force.
It pulls me across the room.
My hand trembles as I reach for it.
I sit on the edge of her bed. The sheets still smell faintly of her perfume.
Jasmine.
I open the diary.
The first several pages are filled with sketches.
Faces.
Hands.
A charcoal drawing of the ocean view from the window.
The handwriting is beautiful.
Artistic and looping.
I flip through entries about color palettes, frustrations with her work, moments of inspiration.
I see Theo's name everywhere.
Theo brought me peonies today. He remembered they were my favorite.
Fought with T again. He doesn't understand that I need my space to create. His love is so… total. So consuming.
T sold another company. He wants to take me to Paris to celebrate. All I want to do is stay here and finish the new series.
It's a portrait of a relationship that is both deeply loving and deeply strained.
I keep flipping, my heart pounding faster as the dates get closer to her death.
The tone of the entries changes.
It becomes darker.
More frantic.
The looping script becomes tighter, more angular.
And then I find it.
An entry from the last month of her life.
My eyes scan the page, my breath catching in my throat.
The words leap out at me, clear and undeniable.
I have to leave him.
I know he won't understand. He'll see it as a betrayal. A rejection.
But it's not. It's self-preservation.
His love… it's a cage. A beautiful, gilded, luxurious cage, but it's still a cage.
He wants to protect me from the world. From my own darkness. From everything.
But I'm suffocating.
He thinks he's saving me, but he's just erasing me.
I'm making a plan. I'm talking to a lawyer. I'm setting up my own studio downtown.
I'll be gone by the end of the month.
My god.
She was leaving him.
The perfect, tragic love story… was ending.
Dr. Harrison wasn't entirely lying.
There was more to the story.
I sit there, on the edge of a dead woman's bed, holding her secrets in my hands.
The world outside this room, the medical board, the paparazzi, my own shattered career… it all fades away.
There is only this room.
This secret.
This lie.
I am so absorbed, so lost in the pages of the diary, that I don't hear it.
The sound of the front door opening.
The quiet footsteps in the hall.
The soft click of his bedroom door.
I don't register anything until a shadow falls over the page.
My blood turns to ice.
I look up.
Slowly.
Theo is standing in the doorway of the hidden room.
He's not angry.
He's not yelling.
His face is a blank, hollow mask of a pain so profound it has no expression.
His eyes are fixed on the diary in my hands.
He looks at me.
And in his eyes, I see the full, devastating truth of my trespass.
I have not just entered his home.
I have invaded his heart.
And I have been caught.