The drive home helps ease the pressure in my mind and the migraine has faded to a dull hum behind my eyes, but I still feel... fuzzy. Like someone added a blur filter to my vision.
I kill the engine. Exhale.
Two cars sit in the driveway.
Ash's sedan. Rowan's hatchback.
Rowan drops by often enough, and Ash works from home half the time.
My first thought is that something happened with Rowan's job. Did she get fired? Is someone hurt?
I grab my bag, climb out, and head for the door.
The moment the lock turns, I hear them.
"Evie!" Rowan's voice, high and startled. Ash's right behind it, quick and bright. "You're home early!"
I step inside.
Rowan and Ash stand in the living room together, stiff and a little too smiley, the kind of smile people put on when they've been caught doing something mundane but embarrassing. Like trying to frost a cake that's falling to one side.
"We were just," Rowan begins.
"Planning something for you," Ash finishes.
The lie hits instantly.
Not because of the words or the delivery. Because of the truth sliding into my mind with perfect clarity:
They weren't planning anything.
They weren't expecting me.
They were interrupted.
By me.
My bag slides off my shoulder and hits the floor with a soft thud.
"Oh," I say quietly. Something inside me goes very still.
The full force of what I just walked into slamming into me without even a moment to prepare.
And the way both of them flinch at that one syllable tells me everything their mouths haven't yet.
I stand there, feeling shell shocked at the sudden revelation unfolding before me.
Rowan is the first to break.
Her smile collapses like wet tissue paper, and she takes a tiny step back, hands lifting defensively even though I haven't moved.
"Evie," she says, voice thin. "It's not, it's not what you think."
The lie hits before the last syllable finishes leaving her mouth. Click.
It's exactly what I think. Worse, actually. Longer than I realized and happening right under my nose.
Ash jumps in immediately, words tumbling over themselves. "We really were planning something. We were just talking about the engagement party! Trying to surprise you."
The way he says it, I know that less than 24 hours ago, I would have believed this explanation from him without question. I always did, I had no reason not to.
But this time his words spark something in me. Click.
Another lie. Slick. Practiced. He's used this tone to soothe me before.
But now it just slides into my mind as pure falseness, a red-stamped DENIED across the air between us.
I swallow, because suddenly my mouth is dry. "Stop."
They both freeze.
Ash takes a step toward me, automatic, familiar, the kind of movement he makes when he wants to fix something with closeness rather than honesty.
He reaches for my arm.
And the second his hand brushes my skin, every hair on my body stands on end.
Not from fear. Not shock. A nauseating, gut-deep revulsion that slams through me harder than the vision earlier.
Because the truth hits faster than thought. Click.
His hands. On Rowan. On me. Interchangeable. Unclean. Touch layered over touch layered over lies.
I yank my arm back like he burned me.
Ash recoils, stunned. "Evie—?"
Rowan inhales sharply.
A flash of something furious and wounded crosses her face.
Not at me.
At him.
Because he tried to comfort me, tried to reach for me, and it exposes everything between them in one careless motion.
"Ash," she snaps quietly. Her voice shakes. "Don't."
He looks between us, bewildered, like he's losing control of a script he wrote and expected everyone else to follow.
"I just, Evie, let me explain—"
"No," I whisper, rubbing my wrist. "Don't touch me."
He opens his mouth to protest, but Rowan beats him to it.
"She's right," Rowan says tightly. "Don't."
Her voice splinters on the edges, brittle with months of secrecy and guilt. She looks at him like she's seeing him clearly for the first time and not liking it.
I feel like crawling out of my skin.
"Just tell me the truth," I say.
Rowan's eyes dart to Ash. Ash's jaw tightens. And I watch the two of them exchange a silent conversation in a single second.
Guilt is the first emotion that fills the room. Then fear. Then, God help me, relief.
From Rowan. Not from Ash.
"I can explain," she whispers, and this time the words aren't a lie. Click.
She wants to explain. She's been waiting to explain. She's exhausted from carrying this.
She squeezes her eyes shut. "Evie... I'm so sorry."
Ash whips toward her. "Rowan, don't—"
But it's too late. She's already unraveling.
"It wasn't supposed to happen. The first time was, God, it was stupid, and we said it wouldn't happen again, but then it did, and I kept telling him to tell you, and he kept promising he would, but he never—"
"Rowan." Ash's voice cracks sharp as glass.
She flinches. But she keeps going.
"And I hated lying to you. I hated it. But I didn't know how to stop without... without blowing everything up."
She has tears in her eyes now and the tiniest part of me that still considers her my best friend wants to comfort her.
My body almost moves before my mind stops it. I can't comfort the person who helped break me.
I stare at the two of them. Finally seeing.
Not crying. Not yelling. Just taking in the truth as it arrives. Because in all this chaos and turmoil I've somehow found myself in, it's the only thing holding me steady when all I want to do is fall apart.
Every fact sliding into place like a puzzle I didn't ask for but can't unsee.
"How long?" I ask.
Rowan looks at the floor. Ash looks at me.
Their answers come layered and it's almost comical if not for the seriousness of the subject.
Rowan: "A few months."
Ash: "A couple weeks."
The ring on my finger pulses. Click.
Ash is lying. Rowan is not.
I nod. "Okay."
Ash steps forward, desperate, palms open. "Evie, it was a mistake—"
Rowan whips toward him, fury igniting. "No it wasn't." Another truth. Hot and bright.
Ash's head snaps toward her, betrayed. "Rowan—"
"Don't you dare call it a mistake," she spits. "Not to save face."
The room goes silent.
My heartbeat is the only sound in my ears, steady and foreign, like it belongs to someone braver. Someone stronger.
I take a breath.
"Well," I say, looking Rowan in the eyes, "thank you for the truth."
Ash's face cracks at the edges.
And finally, finally, he sees how little ground he has left.
I don't raise my voice. Or try to argue or fight. I just know what I have to do now.
"I'm leaving."
Both of them freeze.
It's not dramatic. It's not a threat. It's not even anger.
Just a door closing somewhere in my chest.
And they both feel it.
Rowan covers her face with trembling hands.
Ash looks at me like he's just realized how gravity works.
"Evie," he says. "Please. We can—"
"No," I say simply.
The truth inside him sputters, panics, claws at excuses.
He tries again. "Wait. Just, please listen—"
"I am," I reply. "And I don't want this."
I turn, walk to the bedroom, and start packing an overnight bag. Their voices follow me, Rowan's panicked apologies, Ash's frantic attempts to claw back the narrative, but none of it touches me.
Not anymore.
The ring stays warm on my finger.
A steady, unshakable truth:
I'm done.
I don't remember the drive.
I'm aware of traffic lights, familiar turns, the soft clatter of my signal clicking at a stop I almost forget to take, but none of it feels connected to me. It's like I'm riding in the passenger seat of my own life, watching myself go through the motions.
By the time I stand in the hotel lobby, my overnight bag feels too light.
I genuinely can't recall what I shoved inside it.
"How many keys?" the front desk clerk asks brightly.
My brain stutters. "Just one."
She hands me a little envelope with my room number written on it next to a wifi password.
A vague thank you leaves my mouth and I make my way toward my room.
The elevator music feels wrong. Too cheerful. Too artificial around the edges.
I swipe into a room that looks just like every other mid-range hotel room: beige walls, soft lighting, crisp sheets that smell like they've been laundered within an inch of their lives.
I drop the bag.
I drop myself next.
Just sit on the corner of the bed, staring at the carpet like if I look away too fast reality might collapse on me.
I glance at the clock. It's not even 5 o'clock yet. My world has crumbled around me in less than one business day.
I force myself to call work.
"Hey Harold," I say when he picks up. "Today's been... a lot. I'll be in late tomorrow. I have to visit a... I have an appointment."
There's a pause where he seems ready to ask follow-up questions, and then, blessedly, decides against it.
"No problem," he says. "Hope you feel better."
I hang up.
Silence fills the room again. Hotel silence feels like waiting for a train, sitting on hold, watching a timer count down, waiting for the transition to come. It exists outside of familiar, comforting silence.
I finally look at my bag and unzip it.
I've packed:
four shirts
two socks that do not match
a single pair of pants
a deodorant stick
my work binder
a pack of gum
a charger for a device I didn't bring
and the book from my nightstand
"No underwear," I whisper weakly.
It should be funny. It almost is.
But the humor dies before it reaches my mouth.
I look down at the ring, quiet, warm, sitting on my hand like it's been waiting centuries to get there.
"This is your fault," I tell it softly. It pulses once. "Fine. Partly your fault."
I fall backward onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling until it blurs.
Because yes, there is something about the ring that helped me see the truth. That's obvious. But I do not have the energy to try and unravel that one right now.
Yes, it saved me from wasting more years of my life with the wrong people.
Yes, they betrayed me and I deserved better.
But knowing all that doesn't make it hurt less. Or make it less strange.
My best friend. My fiancé. Two people I trusted without hesitation.
I curl my arms around a pillow, because there's nothing else to hold. The room feels too big. The bed feels bigger.
And the quiet...
God, the quiet.
I didn't realize how many nights I've fallen asleep to someone's breath beside me. How many mornings I woke to the weight of a body next to mine without thinking about it at all. How familiar it was. How normal.
The emptiness now is so loud.
I bite the inside of my cheek until it stings. Anything to ground myself.
The urge to call Rowan and cry to her like I have a million times since kindergarten struggles for purchase. A safety net built over decades slowly falls away.
Tonight is the first time in years I fall asleep alone.
And my last thought isn't anger. Or rage. Or even betrayal.
It's grief.
Because no matter what brought me here, I've just lost a future I didn't even realize was at risk.
And then I cry myself to sleep.
Sleep doesn't so much arrive as ambush me.
I'm drifting, drowning, floating, something between the three, until the hotel mattress drops away and the air around me goes cold.
Not frightening. Not painful.
Just... other. Surreal.
A pale light gathers in front of me, soft as fog, slow as dawn. I'm standing somewhere I don't recognize, an endless expanse of gray stone stretching out beneath my feet like an ancient courtyard abandoned to silence.
Wind moves through my hair.
Except there is no wind.
Something shifts in the dark ahead of me.
Then he steps forward.
The man from the vision.
Long black hair that falls around him like a curtain. Eyes the color of dusk after snowfall. Pointed ears. Elegant, inhuman, and watching me with an expression I can't decipher.
He looks less like he's appearing in my dream
and more like I've wandered into his.
For a moment I forget how to breathe.
He tilts his head, studying me, like he's comparing the real me to a memory he's carried for too long.
"Found you," he murmurs.
His voice is low. Inevitable and familiar.
Something inside my chest tightens, not unpleasantly. More like recognizing a word from a language I used to speak in childhood but can't fully translate anymore.
I take a step back.
He takes a step forward, slow and deliberate, as if matching my retreat with something like inevitability.
His hand lifts.
Not to grab me. Not to threaten.
Just to reach.
A quiet offering of contact.
My breath catches. Something low in my stomach twists, fear, longing, recognition, I don't know. I shouldn't want to step closer to a stranger pulled straight out of a fantasy novel. But the pull is there. Faint. Steady. Tugging from somewhere behind my ribs.
The ring on my pinky warms. I vaguely consider how strange that is in a dream.
I don't reach back. But I want to.
His fingers hover a breath from mine, close enough that I swear I can feel the softness of his skin, the strength in his hands.
We don't touch.
The almost-touch is worse.
He studies my hand, then my face, and something like relief softens the sharpness of his expression.
"It was never supposed to take this long," he says softly, like he's apologizing for something I don't remember. "But you're here now."
I open my mouth to ask where here is, or who he is, or what any of this means, but the moment my lips part, the dream wavers like heat over pavement.
His expression sharpens, not angry but urgent.
"Wake up," he says, suddenly closer to me, voice commanding. "They'll be looking."
A pulse of light floods the courtyard.
I jerk awake with a sharp inhale, hand flying to my chest.
The hotel room snaps back into existence, soft bed, buzzing AC unit, thin morning light seeping around the blackout curtains.
And the ring.
"Okay," I whisper to the empty room. "That's... extremely not normal."
The clock shows 6am. I slept for 12 hours?
All the crying paired with nothing but iced coffee the day before has me feeling groggy and dehydrated. I need water. And a shower.
But the grief I fell asleep with?
It's dulled. Not gone. Not healed.
Just softened enough to let something else in:
Curiosity. Confusion. A spark of something I haven't felt since yesterday morning when this damn ring fused itself to my hand and upended my life.
Possibility.