Restless, I went looking for him. His car was still outside. My feet carried me down the hallway, past sleeping portraits and cold stone, until I reached the library. Voices leaked through the door—low, intimate.
I reached for the knob. Then froze.
Through the gap, I saw Charlene perched on Phyllis’s lap, her fingers twining in his hair as their lips met—slow, familiar, certain.
My breath hitched. My heart shattered.
The one person I had clung to in the dark—was never really mine to begin with.
Louise's POV
My fingers quivered as I brought the chilled glass of water to my lips, struggling to suppress the sobs threatening to rise. Across the room, Phyllis stood in the kitchen, casually preparing my favorite dish. He smiled, completely unfazed, as though nothing significant had happened—as if he hadn’t just torn my world apart moments before with a painful truth I never wanted to hear.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you for five years, Louise,” he murmured, calling me by the nickname only he ever used.
He carefully placed the grilled beef on a plate, dusting it with spices and nestling a perfectly done sunny-side-up egg beside it. “You should eat more. You’ve grown so thin.”