Chapter Sixteen— The Last Cut Doesn't Bleed
They flew to Italy for the honeymoon.
A villa hidden in the hills of Tuscany, where the air tasted like old wine and the world finally slowed down.
Hazel laughed in the mornings.
Henry read to her in bed.
Their days blurred — sex, fruit, silence, sun.
And for the first time, Hazel stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Until it did.
Three days into their stay, a letter arrived.
No return address. Wax seal, blood red.
Hazel opened it while Henry was showering.
It was handwritten, elegant and cruel.
> You can marry him. You can love him. But you don't know him, Hazel. Ask him about 2018. Ask him what he left behind in Prague. Not every ghost is yours, sweetheart. Some belong to the man beside you.
Hazel sat still for a long time.
Then folded the letter and slipped it into her suitcase.
She didn't ask right away.
Instead, she watched.
Henry smiled in his sleep. Whispered her name like a prayer.
She didn't want to break that.
But the truth itched in her bones.
So one night, beneath the orange moon, she asked.
"What happened in Prague?"
Henry stilled.
His wine glass trembled in his hand.
"Where did you hear that?"
"A letter."
His silence was an answer.
Hazel pressed. "What did you do?"
Henry looked her dead in the eyes.
"I fell in love with someone who didn't survive me."
Hazel flinched. "What does that mean?"
"She overdosed. I didn't cause it. But I didn't stop it, either."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want you to think I was still haunted."
She whispered, "You are, aren't you?"
He didn't reply.
Hazel walked out into the vineyard alone.
The air tasted like dust.
She cried — not because of the past, but because the man she married still didn't know how to bleed out his grief.
She didn't sleep that night.
Neither did Henry.
In the morning, she found him in the olive grove.
He was kneeling beside a small stone, barely visible in the dirt.
Her name was Isolde.
And Henry finally told the truth.
"She was my first salvation," he said. "But she didn't want to be saved. I tried. She ran. I begged. She smiled. Then she stopped breathing, and I stopped trusting love."
Hazel knelt beside him.
"She's not your sin."
"She's my shadow."
"No," Hazel whispered. "She's your scar. You are still alive. That is the real tragedy. And the real miracle."
They stood together for a long time.
Then Hazel said the only thing that mattered:
"Let's go home."
Back in the States, the world didn't wait.
Hazel's father was arrested — possession, assault, resisting.
Ava left the country — shamed, burned by the industry.
But Henry and Hazel?
They stayed.
Married.
Scarred.
Wounded.
Beautiful.
Hazel sits at the window of their shared home, watching the rain. Henry stands behind her, arms around her waist.
She whispers, "Do you still dream of ghosts?"
He kisses her neck. "No. I only dream of the woman who made me feel alive again."
Hazel smiles — soft, bruised, but shining.
And the story ends not with a bang.
But with breath.
Peace.
And the knowledge that some love doesn't heal you.
It makes you stronger in the breaking.