Forever, my enigma

Iden’s throat constricted.

“Ellaya…” he whispered.

She turned slowly.

Not surprised. Not afraid.

Her eyes were wild with stormlight.

Then she smiled—and hummed the final line of their wedding song.

He lurched forward, hand outstretched to touch her.

But she vanished like breath in winter air.

His heart skipped. Was she real? Or a ghost conjured by guilt?

Then—he heard it again. That hum.

From upstairs.

He bolted, footsteps thunderous against the silence. With each step, the melody sharpened, luring him deeper into the dark.

At the top of the stairs, he paused. His breath hitched as his fingers hovered over the doorknob. Cold metal bit into his skin, a cruel mirror to the chill in his chest. The door groaned open—revealing a room drenched in shadow and memory.

A crackling gramophone spun her tune. Dust danced in the moonlight.

He crossed the room and shut it off.

Turned—

And saw her.

No… not her.

A photograph.

Framed on the far wall.

A frozen moment: Ellaya in white lace, radiant beside a man who used to be him. Once vibrant joy had dulled into sepia, but the ache it sparked was fresh and brutal.

His fists trembled. Words clawed at his throat and died before they could form.

Finally, he rasped, “Ellaya…”

He reached for the photograph. His fingers traced the contours of her smile, her eyes, her veil—each a relic of a life he’d lost.

He remembered the scent of her on rainy mornings—bergamot and salt. The way she laughed, quietly, like it was a secret just for him. The weight of her head on his chest as they watched storms in silence.

Gone. All of it.

The curtains stirred behind him.

Mocking him.

Rain streaked the glass outside, like tears he refused to shed.

And then—

Rage.

He slammed his fist into the photo.

Glass shattered.

“Why, Laaya?” he choked out, voice cracking like brittle glass. “Why didn’t you choose the truth?”

Another punch. The frame cracked, splinters biting into his skin.

“Why didn’t you choose me?”

His voice grew hoarse, each word pulled from the marrow of his grief.

“You let them take you.”

Another blow.

“You didn’t even fight. Not for us.”

Blood bloomed across his knuckles, dripping onto the floor like red confessions.

“You said you’d never leave me,” he whispered, pressing his forehead against the fractured glass. “So why did you make it so easy to walk away?”

He collapsed to his knees, breath ragged. Every shard on the floor reflected her face—fragmented, unreachable.

Love didn’t die.

It turned into something sharper.

He punched again.

And again.

Fragments rained to the floor—jagged, merciless.

Her face haunted every piece.

Love didn’t die. It just found sharper ways to hurt.

He collapsed against the wall, forehead pressed to the chipped paint. The darkness swallowed him whole. The rain beat against the windows like a war drum.

Minutes passed.

Then his boots crunched across the glass as he walked out. He didn’t look back.

---

As the door sighed shut, a shadow moved.

A woman stepped into the room.

Black jacket. Silent boots. Violet eyes that didn’t blink.

She crouched by the wreckage, picking up a blood-smeared shard of the photograph. The edges bit into her skin—but she welcomed the pain.

“Laya,” his voice echoed in her mind. “I can kill and die for you.”

She let out a bitter breath. “What a stupid thing to say,” she whispered.

She tore the photo in half—separating man from woman.

Then stabbed his image with a glass shard.

Blood smeared across the torn paper, binding her pain to the ruin she left behind.

She turned to the window, the rain tracing paths on the glass like tears she would never shed.

Outside, a car waited. Its headlights flickered through the mist. She saw him.

Still waiting.

Still hoping.

Fool.

She didn’t move.

She simply watched, her silhouette framed by stormlight.

And when she finally whispered, it was a vow and a dirge.

“Forever, my enigma.”

---

By dawn, the storm had passed.

Light crawled across the decaying walls, peeling back the layers of night. Iden sat slumped in the car, eyes fixed on that upstairs window.

Her voice echoed in his mind.

Her face refused to fade.

He squeezed the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. Then his phone buzzed.

He answered with a snarl.

“Find her. I want every detail. No delays.”

A pause. Then another call. “I’ll see you in fifteen.”

---

“You didn’t come home,” Ana said.

Her voice was careful. Too careful.

Iden looked through her.

“No second chances,” he said coldly.

Ana faltered. “I… I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have—”

“Lies,” he said, tapping the rim of his coffee cup. “I don’t forgive them.”

She reached across the table, desperation bleeding from her fingers. “Please. I love you.”

He didn’t flinch.

“And if you lie again?” he murmured.

“I won’t,” she breathed. “I swear—don’t leave me.”

Outside, the café looked peaceful. A couple sharing coffee. Hands barely touching.

But across the street…

A woman stood.

Black jacket. Purple-black hair. Eyes like winter storms.

She watched.

Unblinking.

The waiter brought the bill. Iden flipped it over—and paused.

Tucked beneath the slip was a note.

One word.

Congratulations.

Written in the handwriting he knew better than his own.

His chest tightened. Slowly, he turned toward the window.

Their eyes met.

Her stare pierced glass and time and memory.

And he thought, She always knew how to disappear. But she never stopped watching.

Then—

Gone.

He blinked.

She was nowhere.

A ghost again.

Or maybe she had never left.