IVY GALANIS' POV
Months Earlier
The front gate scrapes my arm again as I push it open. Of course it does. This gate hates me. This whole building hates me.
I step over the guy passed out by the stairs, mumbling something into the concrete. Typical Tuesday. He lifts his hand like he is waving at imaginary birds. At this point, I think he and the concrete are in a committed relationship.
The elevator is broken — again — so I have to drag myself up four flights of stairs. My legs ache, my back complains, and my stomach is growling like it wants to file a complaint. I have only had coffee today, the cheap kind Maya forced me to drink because "caffeine counts as a meal, babe."
By the time I reach the third floor landing, my lungs are on fire. I drag myself up the last flight, every muscle in my body screaming. Finally, I reach my door, and the hallway smells like burnt fish and microwaved chorizo. The lights flicker violently, like they are deciding whether to stay alive or let me suffer in darkness. One bulb even makes a sizzling noise as if it is about to short-circuit.
Home sweet hell.
My aunt's musty living room smell hits me the second I open the door — cigarettes, cheap beer, and something that died emotionally. The scent is so familiar that my body reacts automatically: shoulders tight, breath shallow, heart braced for war.
The apartment is a disaster. Plates everywhere. Bottles everywhere. My sanity? Nowhere. There is even an empty pasta plate on top of the microwave that was not here when I left.
I tie my hair up and start cleaning because if I don't, she will scream at me later. I was only at Maya's place for two nights — two tiny nights — and somehow Aunt Tessa managed to turn the apartment into a crime scene. I should have stayed at Maya's. Maya, who smells like jasmine and wears matching pajamas. Maya, who makes life feel less like drowning and whose house does not make me want to cry, curl into a ball and evaporate.
I am dumping the last container of Chinese takeout when the door bangs open.
Aunt Tessa bursts in, laughing like she is auditioning for 'Worst Person Alive.' Her perfume is a violent mix of alcohol and cheap floral spray.
"Call me, Paul! I will be expecting it!" She cackles.
Then she spots me — and drops the smile like it offended her ancestors.
"You're back from whoring around? Just like your stupid mother."
The words hit like a slap I have gotten used to. Too used to. They slip under my skin and sit there, heavy and poisonous, but I swallow them down because I have learned not to react. She feeds on reactions.
She tosses a cardboard box at me, and it almost hits my chest. "Put that in the fridge."
"Okay," I whisper, even though I am starving.
She shoves past me, nearly knocking me into the wall, and disappears down the hallway, muttering something about people being ungrateful. I don't bother listening. Her insults come in bulk.
I clean up the rest in silence — plates, wrappers, cups, chunks of her chaos. My mind drifts because if I stay present, I will cry. And crying in this house feels like asking for permission to be hurt again.
The second I am done, I shower, letting the lukewarm water run down my back and wash the day off my skin in slow, tired streams. For a moment, I pretend it can wash away my whole life. When I finally step into my room, towel wrapped tightly around me, I notice the old iron cookie tin on the floor, half-hidden under fallen clothes. It must have slipped out when I was rushing earlier.
My breath catches.
I have not opened it in a long time.
Wrapped in just my towel, I sit on the bed and lift the lid. The metallic creak is soft but sharp enough to cut through me. My heart pulls tight as my parents' things greet me — the old photograph of us, the little trinkets Mum kept safe, the memories I lost too young.
It is all still here.
My father's old watch with the cracked leather strap.
My mother's silver chain, knotted beyond repair.
A folded note she once left in my lunchbox. A ribbon from a dress I barely remember. These pieces of them are all I have left; it is like a museum of a life that used to feel like it belonged to me.
Fragments of a life I barely remember.
I trace the cracked glass over my dad's smile in the photo of the three of us.
For a moment, everything is too quiet. Too heavy.
My throat closes. I press the frame against my chest, trying and failing not to cry.
I don't even remember his voice. Just the way my mother smiled when she talked about him. Like she was remembering sunlight.
"Don't cry, Ivy," I whisper to myself. It does not work.
This is so hard.
Then something slips out — a yellowed envelope I have never seen before.
I pause, looking at it again to be sure I am not imagining it, but no — it is real. And it is addressed in my mother's handwriting: To M.
My breath stills.
"M," I murmur under my breath. "Who or what the hell is M?"
My fingers quiver as I pick it up. It is empty. No letter. No clue. Just that single initial and the way her handwriting curls like she rushed to write it.
A loud crash echoes from the living room — Aunt Tessa again, probably knocking something over — and I tuck the envelope back inside the tin before she decides to storm into my space.
But my mind is racing now for reasons I can't explain, faster than my heartbeat.
Why would my mother hide an envelope in our family picture frame?
And why. . . why have I never seen it before?