“They don’t leave me, Clara,” he rasped, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“They are the only ones who understand the weight of what I’ve done.
You… you can’t understand.
You’re too clean.”
“I don’t want to understand!” she shouted, the tears finally flowing, hot and fast.
“I wanted to love you, Julian! But how can I love a man who invites death to dinner every month?”
He didn’t have an answer.
He couldn’t explain the hunger, the hollow ache that only the names of the dead could fill.
He was a man dying of his own memories, and he had dragged her into the autopsy.
“Get out,” he said, his voice a hollow, broken thing.
“Take the keys, take the money, take everything.
Just go before I change my mind.
Before I realize that I have to add you to the guest list.”
Clara looked at him—the most powerful man in the city, currently huddled on the floor, shivering like a child in the dark.
She saw the man she loved, and she saw the monster who had murdered him.
She realized there was no separating the two.
She didn’t take the money.
She didn’t take the keys.
She turned and walked out the front door, leaving the mansion behind.
She walked until the streetlights became dim, until she could no longer hear the sound of the ocean, until she was finally, mercifully, away from the stench of his madness.
Six months later.
Future MIL Offers To Pay For Wedding Brunch, Then Refuses To Respect The Couple’s Diet
The mansion was dark.
The staff had been dismissed, the luxury liquidated.
Julian sat at the head of the table.
He was alone.
There were no truffles, no Wagyu, no vintage wine.
There was only a piece of stale bread and a glass of tap water.
He stared at the chair across from him.
He stared until his eyes ached.
But the ghosts weren’t there anymore.
He hadn’t confessed in monThS. He had tried, but the seats remained empty.
The guilt had become so heavy that the ghosts had simply stopped coming; they were tired of him.
He was alone in a way that was far more terrifying than any haunting.
He stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the city he no longer ruled.
He was finally cured of his madness, and in the silence, he realized the truth: the ghosts hadn’t been the problem.
The man who needed them to feel human was.
He didn’t look back at the table.
He walked out of the room, into the night, a man with no secrets, no monsters, and absolutely nothing to live for.
He was finally free, and it was the loneliest feeling in the world.
