Returning the Keys, Taking My Freedom

"Elena, you really backed out?"

The call from Tessa Langford came through just as I walked out of the realtor's office.

"I did."

"You put down a 30,000-dollar deposit, and you just walked away from it? Does Julian know?"

"He's in Valeria."

"Business trip?"

I didn't answer, and Tessa fell silent for a couple of seconds.

"Elena, even if you two had a fight, you can't just give up on the house…"

"I found hundreds of photos on his old camera. The same woman. The same mountain. Five years' worth of them."

The other end of the line went quiet before she whispered, "Rosalie Vance?"

Tessa didn't say another word.

On my way home, a message from Julian Harrow popped up on my screen.

It was a photo of a steaming mug of hot chocolate in a white ceramic cup, complete with a tiny deer painted on the side, accompanied by the text, "It's snowing in Bellmont. I'm freezing."

I recognized that cup instantly.

Julian had sent me the exact same photo the previous winter—same angle, same composition. When I'd asked him which cafe he'd gone to back then, he told me he'd simply ducked into some random place to escape the cold and couldn't remember the name.

Except I'd already seen another photo tucked away on his old camera.

Rosalie was sitting in that exact same cafe, smiling at the camera with an identical mug of hot chocolate beside her, a burgundy scarf wrapped around her neck—one I'd never seen before.

Five years. Every winter, the same cafe, the same hot chocolate, and the same woman. Yet the photos Julian sent me were always strictly limited to food and scenery, never showing the person sitting across from him.

When I let myself into the apartment and started changing my shoes, something in the shoe rack caught my eye.

Next to Julian's sneakers sat a pair of white canvas shoes in a woman's size five. I wore a seven.

Curiosity got the better of me. I bent down, pulled out one of the insoles, and found a small note tucked underneath. It read, "Jules, the last pair gave me blisters."

Jules.

We'd been together for five years, and I hadn't even known Julian had a nickname like that, let alone that he would let anyone call him by it.

I slipped the note back where I found it, returned the shoes to the rack, and walked into the bedroom.

Julian's laptop was still awake, displaying an open booking confirmation on the screen for Silverpine Ridge on February 14 for two guests.

The booking was for a two-night stay at a secluded mountain lodge, complete with a private thermal pool and a seven-course dinner.

Under special requests, he'd written, "Rosie's birthday."

My birthday was March 9. Rosalie's was February 15.

Last year, on March 9, when I asked Julian if he could have dinner with me, he claimed he had an inescapable work function. I'd waited until 11:00 pm that night before a message finally trickled through. "Just got home. Are you asleep? Happy birthday. I'll make it up to you."

Make it up to me.

It belonged in the same category as next time—just something he could promise because he never intended to follow through.

I opened the cloud photo library synced to Julian's phone. Out of more than 3,000 photos, only 11 were of me, seven of which had been taken during our very first year together. Over the next four years, there were just four more.

Then I found an album titled "Snowfall in Bellmont". Every photo inside was of Rosalie—dressed in a traditional Valerian winter dress, walking through freshly fallen snow, or standing before an old hillside chapel with her hands clasped together. Every shot had been carefully composed with soft lighting, flattering angles, and perfect framing, looking like something torn straight from a travel magazine.

Whenever Julian took pictures of me, he just pointed the camera and clicked, never bothering with the angle or checking the lighting.

Once, I'd complained, "Could you at least try to make me look good?"

He had simply shrugged and said, "It's just a picture. It doesn't have to be perfect."

Good enough.

That had always been Julian's answer to almost everything when it came to me.

My phone suddenly rang with a video call from Julian.

I answered, and he appeared on the screen wearing a gray overcoat, standing in what looked like a hotel corridor. "Have you eaten?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be back the day after tomorrow. My flight's at three."

"Okay."

"You sound weird."

"Just tired."

"Get some sleep."

He was just about to hang up when a woman's voice drifted in from somewhere behind him.

"Jules, the car's here."

Julian turned his head and said something, then looked back at me. "That's Rosalie. I've got to go."

"Why is she at your hotel?"

"Her room's next to mine. We're heading out for dinner."

"Do you do this every year?"

"Our trips just happen to overlap. Don't read into it." He smiled as he said it, completely at ease, as though he were explaining something so utterly ordinary that there was no logical reason for me to even ask. "Oh, right. I got you a fridge magnet. It took me forever to pick one this time."

Then he ended the call.

Numbly, I walked into the kitchen and pulled the refrigerator door open. Five souvenir magnets were stuck to the surface, all of them showing Mount Veyra—different sizes, different years.