I added one more detail to the page: a butterfly pin in the corner, its wings open wide.
Then I closed the sketchbook, blew out the candle, and let the quiet take me.
4
HARPER
Icouldn’t sleep.
I tried.
I shut the blinds, dimmed the lamp, smoothed the blanket with the same obsessive precision I used on legal briefs and grocery lists. But my body refused to follow the rules. My thoughts scattered like dropped pins.
The quiet didn’t help. It never had.
In Boston, I slept with a white noise machine and two ambient light sources. A habit Daniel once teased me about—until we started sleeping in separate rooms and neither of us needed excuses anymore.
Now, here in this creaky, salt-heavy house, the silence felt too wide.
I got up, pulled on a sweatshirt, and padded downstairs barefoot.
The kitchen smelled like lemon and something sweet. A ghost of the night before.
The swing outside was still. The porch empty. The wind had gone to sleep.
I poured a glass of water and stood at the sink, watching the stars blink in the sky. One of them burned a little brighter thanthe rest. I tried to remember if it was a planet. Daniel would know. He always knew useless trivia like that.
Which, of course, made me reach for my phone.
The screen glowed in my palm. One unread message.
Daniel: Let me know if you want to talk. Or not. I’m around.
I stared at it for a long time. Then I called him.
He picked up after two rings.
“Harper,” he said, his voice low, like he already knew he wasn’t welcome.
“I got your message,” I said.
A pause.
“I wasn’t sure if I should send it,” he said. “I didn’t want to make things worse.”
“They’re already worse.”
“I know.”
We both went quiet. Not for the first time.
“I’m not calling to fight,” I said. “I just… I don’t know what I’m doing here.”
“At the house?”
“At all.”
He sighed. “You always know what you’re doing. That’s your thing.”
