I woke up before the sun, before the alarm, before even the birds remembered to sing. The room was still cast in that blue-tinted softness that only exists in early morning. My eyes drifted instinctively toward her—Nina. Still asleep. Still beautiful in a way that didn't seem fair to the rest of the world.
Her hair had fallen messily across her face, strands curling down over her closed eyes, as if even in her sleep, she didn't want to be fully seen. I studied her in the quiet, memorizing the way her lashes lay like ink strokes on her cheeks, the slight parting of her lips, the calm rise and fall of her breath.
God, she was beautiful. She always was. But there was something especially haunting about watching her like this—at rest, unguarded. You could stare for hours and never guess what lived behind that face. What she'd done. What she was hiding. She looked like someone incapable of cruelty. Someone incapable of lies. But then again, appearances had always been her armor.
A soft ache twisted in my chest. I reached over, carefully, slowly—just to move the strands of hair out of her face. I wanted to see her fully, to take in that fragile kind of innocence she carried only in sleep. My fingers were inches away from her temple when I heard her whisper.
"Nora… no."
It was barely audible. A breath. A plea. But unmistakable.
I froze.
Her voice cracked mid-word, sadness folded into it like broken glass. My hand hovered, unsure, then dropped back to the mattress. She was dreaming. A nightmare, maybe. I should have woken her—but I didn't. Something told me not to. Something in my gut, cold and bracing, said: listen.
"You know I loved him…"
Her voice was low, almost trembling. I sat back, resting against the headboard, and held my breath. That choice—to listen instead of shake her awake—might've been the most important decision I've ever made. And in that moment, I knew it.
She continued, her tone now sharper, raw with old wounds.
"I loved him… and you still went around and dated him. Haven't had enough from me? Must you have everything I ever wanted? And then you go back home and act all innocent…"
I sat frozen. Every word was a match thrown into dry brush. My skin felt electric. It wasn't just a dream—it was a memory. A confession, unfiltered and naked, bleeding out between breaths.
"I've heard enough. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you…"
She rolled slightly, clutching the sheet like a child holding onto safety and then she started to cry.
Not softly. Not the way people cry in movies. It was fractured, desperate, the kind of sobbing that makes your stomach twist just from hearing it. I knew—instantly, instinctively—this wasn't about me.
It was him. It was Kohl.
She hadn't just dated him. She loved him. Deeply. Enough to still carry the scars in her sleep. And Nora—her sister, the ghost she always tried to erase from conversations—was tangled in it all. Her name wasn't a slip anymore. It was a key.
I slipped out of bed gently, not wanting to wake her, though part of me suddenly couldn't stand to be beside her. I walked to the door, closed it behind me harder than I meant to. The sound jolted her awake—I heard the sudden gasp from the other side—but I kept walking.
Downstairs, the couch welcomed me like an old friend with bad timing. I collapsed into it, my thoughts crashing around me like waves during a storm.
None of it made sense. But my instincts—those same instincts I'd ignored for months—were screaming. She didn't love me. Not the way I thought. Not the way I needed her to. I was… what? A placeholder? A distraction? Her attempt at forgetting the man she truly wanted?
I pressed my palms into my eyes until the colors behind my eyelids blurred into static. No, I told myself. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. Not after everything we'd shared. The long nights. The mornings she kissed the inside of my wrist. The look on her face the first time I told her I loved her. That wasn't fake. It wasn't a lie.
Right?
But doubt has a funny way of rooting itself once it finds a crack. I couldn't stop seeing it. The way she flinched when Kohl said Nora. The way she avoided my questions. The silence. The sex. God, even the sex—was that love or just her trying to drown something she didn't want to feel?
I lay there with the blanket half on, half off, tangled in questions I didn't know how to ask. Sleep came in short bursts. My mind kept replaying her voice: I hate you. I hate you…
Then, sometime later, I heard her.
"Ethan?"
Her voice was light, sing-songy, like sugar poured into coffee. Not a trace of the nightmare from earlier. Just her usual morning tone, soft and sexy.
"Ethan, it's time for work. Aren't you gonna get up?"
I opened my eyes. She stood by the couch in her heels, hair perfectly curled, wearing a dress I'd never seen before—tight around the waist, floral, cheerful. She looked like someone in the first scene of a rom-com, not someone who'd just relived a betrayal in her dreams.
She smiled when our eyes met. "You're staring again. Is my dress that bad?"
I blinked. "No. Not at all. You look… beautiful."
She twirled slightly, like a teenager fishing for compliments. "Good. Since you're just waking up and I'm already dressed, I'm gonna take my car. I'll have someone drive yours back from the shop. Don't be late!"
She blew a kiss and walked toward the door like it was any other day. Like nothing had happened. Like she hadn't bled the truth into the air while asleep, and I hadn't stood knee-deep in it.
I watched her go in silence.
What if… she didn't remember? What if her mind had buried that nightmare the second she opened her eyes? Or worse—what if she did remember, but was playing it cool, pretending nothing happened, counting on me to never bring it up?
Either way, she was gone now, and I was left sitting in my own house like an intruder.
I eventually dragged myself upstairs, needing a shower like I needed clarity. The hot water scalded my back, but it didn't wash the questions away. My head buzzed with the weight of it all. The pieces were forming a picture I didn't want to see.
Nora was real.
Kohl had loved her.
Nina had loved Kohl.
And somehow, I was the one left out of every part of that triangle.
By the time I was dressed and ready for work, my heart had made a decision my mouth didn't dare speak: I wouldn't bring it up. Not now. Not yet. I told myself it was for the sake of peace. For the sake of the life we'd built together. For the sake of the love I still believed we had—even if it was bent and bruised and maybe a little bit fake.
But deep down, I knew the truth.
I wasn't staying silent for peace.
I was staying silent… because I was afraid of her answer.
And maybe, just maybe, I already knew what she'd say.
Or worse—what she wouldn't