The Parting Glass Novels & Stories

The car pulled out of the garage and into the evening. City lights smeared across the windows. People walked past cafés, laughing beneath umbrellas, carrying flowers, groceries, ordinary lives. Lives that didn’t know about wolves and lions and serpents. Lives where girls got to leave work, go home, feed stray cats, and sleep without being hunted. I watched it all disappear behind tinted glass. Marek sat beside me, silent as a grave. His hand rested on his thigh, close to mine but not touching. The distance between us felt deliberate now.

“She might not have the body that you do, but she’s not a slut. She still has track of her body count, unlike you.” “Please leave.” “What the fuck!” I snapped. “You know what? If you don’t want me, I’d get her to leave you,” I sneered. “Look there.” I glanced towards the door. “You see it, huh?” I said, letting a sly grin spread across my face. “Yes, I got all this on recording, and these glasses aren’t ordinary,” I whispered, removing the glasses. “See, it has a camera. It’s a meta glass, sweetheart .”

Not one. Two. And all that I believe I understand break apart like glass.

The neon lights were dim and hazy, looking like something out of an illusion. Willow closed her eyes. People would drift apart and be reunited, but there was no denying that life was full of partings.

"Why did you break my glass, Winter Sloan?" Before I could explain, his grip tightened, cutting off my air. By the time Jared finally let go, I was gasping for breath. His actions erased any guilt I had felt inside. With a slight irritation, I said, "It's just a glass. Don't overreact. I'll just buy you a new one." Instead of calming down, he laughed at my words. "Buy me a new one? Can it ever compare to this? That glass was a gift from Naomi, the last thing she gave me before she died."

“To control.” The room followed, glasses clinking, the sound bright but brittle, like the prelude to breaking glass. For a fleeting moment, the illusion held. They looked like rulers in command of an empire reborn, powerful, unbreakable, but outside the estate walls, a convoy of black cars waited in the dark, engines running, lights off, and within them, a woman in gold smiled behind the tinted glass. Evelyn Morreau lifted her own glass of wine and whispered to no one, “Let them drink to peace. I’ll serve the aftertaste.”

The wine glass slipped from my fingers and shattered across marble and red spread like blood. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the roar in my ears. Adrian smiled faint and sad and mouthed two words I saw clear as day. Let me in.

I whispered. Tears fell together with the glass I was holding. I hurt how it broke, but I have no interest in looking at its broken pieces. What was the reason looking at that scattered parts of the glass? I was like that; broken scattered into pieces, and lost in the field. I don’t have any direction to follow. Not a single compass helps me to go the right way. I was like that glass, steadfast, having heart aches, heaviness, and unknown future.

"I have to get going soon, this will be the last time you see me." I managed a small smile as I said it, though the expression felt bittersweet on my face, carrying with it the weight of five years of memories both good and terrible, and I could see in Samuel's eyes that he understood what I was really saying, that this goodbye encompassed more than just leaving a party or even leaving a marriage, it was a complete severing of ties with this world I'd inhabited for half a decade. The sound of glass hitting the floor shattered the moment between us with a violence that seemed disproportionate to the actual event, the crystal making a sharp, explosive sound as it connected with the polished ha