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Chapter 7 - The Trigger
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2025-12-17 07:25:19
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All the Names She Wore Chapter 7 - The Trigger
LEAHThe house feels like it’s listening.I know how irrational that sounds, how dramatic, how unhinged — but the moment I step inside, the silence feels wired, like someone has threaded tension through the very walls.The blinds are half-closed, letting in thin slices of afternoon sunlight that lay across the floor like pale ribbons. Dust drifts slowly in those ribbons, glittering when the light catches it just so, and for a moment I stand there watching it — because watching dust feels easier than thinking.Easier than remembering.Easier than knowing.I shut the door quietly. The click of the lock echoes too loudly in the house. I flinch even though I tried to close it softly. My nerves are raw, vibrating just under my skin, ready to tear open.The living room looks the same as always — everything in its place, everything neat, orderly, controlled. But it feels wrong now, like someone took my home and replaced it with a replica that doesn’t breathe the same way.Evan’s jacket is st
All the Names She Wore Chapter 6 - The Line We Keep Moving
EVANThe morning is too bright.Not warm, not beautiful, not scenic the way tourists romanticize Rome — just bright, intrusive, exposing every flaw and thought I haven’t had the courage to face.The city’s noise pours into the street like a tidal wave. Cars honk with the sort of impatient rhythm only Romans understand. A motorbike screeches by close enough to ruffle my shirt. A man curses loudly at a taxi blocking the intersection. A dog barks at a pigeon stealing bread.Everything is loud. Everything is alive. Everything is moving forward.And I feel stuck.I step out of the building and onto the narrow sidewalk, checking the time. Too early for my site walk, too late to pretend I overslept. I should be thinking about structural integrity reports, load distribution failures, the erosion patterns Livia showed me yesterday.Instead, I’m thinking about her eyes.
All the Names She Wore Chapter 5 - Paper, Coffee, and Her Eyes
EVANI wake to the sound of a church bell.It takes me a second to remember where I am — not because the room is unfamiliar, but because the dream lingers, thick and heavy, making everything feel slightly off. For a few seconds, I’m still on the bridge from last night’s sleep, fog curling around my legs, two women at opposite ends calling my name.Then the bell chimes again, and the spell breaks.Rome.The small apartment.The high ceiling, the cracked plaster in the corner, the faint smell of coffee drifting in from somewhere below. A scooter revs outside, followed by the echo of laughter in the alley.I stare at the ceiling, heart beating a little too fast for someone who hasn’t even moved yet. My body feels like it’s been braced against something all night.The dream clings to me stubbornly.Leah at one end of the bridge. Livia at the other. Fog thick between them. No matter which way I turned, the other faded from view. No matter how fast I walked, the distance never closed.I shu
All the Names She Wore Chapter 4 - The Cracks I Can’t Hide
LEAHI wake before the sun finishes climbing over the rooftops — not because I’m rested, but because my brain doesn’t seem to understand rest anymore. My body’s rhythms used to be predictable. I used to sleep through anything. Evan always joked he could run a chainsaw next to me and I’d keep sleeping, snoring even.Now I wake at the smallest shift of shadows. Now my dreams feel too loud. Now my body feels like it’s running on borrowed electricity that shorts out without warning.The house is quiet when I walk into the living room. Too quiet. I’ve never noticed how large it is until this week. Without Evan’s sounds — water running, laptop keys clacking, footsteps pacing when he’s stressed — the place feels hollow. Like a hotel room after checkout, full of the ghost of a life but none of the warmth.The blinds are half-open, the early light striping the walls in slanted gold. It looks beautiful and lonely at the same time — like the kind of light you see in a painting of a woman aband
All the Names She Wore Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Archive
LIVIAThe man is exactly on time.That tells me something before he even opens his mouth.I watch him through the rows of shelves as he steps into the archive, the heavy door sighing shut behind him. He hesitates in the same spot most people do, just past the threshold, instinctively aware that this room is different from the ones above it.Light falls in rectangles across the floor. Dust moves in those rectangles like it has nowhere else to be. The old clock on the wall ticks a little louder than necessary, filling the spaces where people might otherwise talk.He doesn’t talk.He scans the room: the central desk, the lamp, the stacks of boxes. His gaze lingers on the old plans I left rolled near the edge, then on the coffee mug, then on the small tower of files I didn’t bother to straighten before leaving last night.He reaches out. His fingers hover a fraction above the corner of a folder.Of course they do.“Don’t touch anything,” I say.His hand freezes, the way most people do whe
All the Names She Wore Chapter 2 - Leah’s Last Request
EVANBy the time I get back to the apartment, Rome has softened at the edges.The heat has pulled back just enough to let the evening in. Shadows gather in the corners of buildings. Streetlights flick on one by one, like someone is slowly running a hand along the city and coaxing it from day into night.I should be exhausted. I’ve been awake for more than twenty-four hours, if I’m counting the time change correctly. My body feels a step behind itself, like it hasn’t quite arrived yet. But my mind refuses to shut up.It replays the afternoon like footage on a loop: Livia’s voice, calm and cutting. You don’t smile much. The way she handled the old plans as if they were sacred. The moment her fingers touched mine—small, nothing, everything.It’s dangerous how quickly she has lodged herself in my thoughts.The apartment is cooler now, the window letting in a breeze that smells faintly of something baking downstairs. I drop the binder on the table, next to the map she gave me earlier. The
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