I can see you

Chapter 27

(EDWARD'S POV)

It's been over a week since we came back from our hometown, and Rosy still isn't here. She's in the house, she moves, she eats but she's not here. Sometimes I catch her staring at the window like something's waiting for her on the other side. Something she can't remember, or something she can't forget. I'm not sure which.

At first, I thought it was grief. Nightmares and guilt that will eventually fade but now? Now it feels like she's slipping into something else. Not back into Riya but into something harder to name.

This morning, I woke to the sound of gagging. I found her slumped in the shower, water still running, her body pale and shaking. Her lips were cracked. Her fingers twitching. I carried her out, dried her off, made her lie down. Tried again to suggest therapy. But she didn't answer. Just stared through me like I wasn't there.

So I stopped asking. I told myself she was healing. That this was part of the process. But a part of me deep and quiet wondered if this was it. If she was settling into a version of herself I didn't know how to reach.

At breakfast, I made eggs and coffee. Something normal. "Babe, don't go to work today," I said as I set her plate down. "Just rest. Try to breathe."

"Huh?" Her voice cracked. "Oh... I already texted my boss. I'm staying in today."

She took a sip of coffee. Her fingers tapped the mug, three soft taps, then one hard one. Again.

"What about you?" she asked. "When will you be back?"

"Not sure. Might be late." I smiled. "You going to miss me?"

Nothing. Just a tight nod.

"Yeah," she said. "Edward... I love you but sometimes I wish you'd find someone better."

I went still. The words didn't make sense right away.

"Why would you say that?" I asked. My voice was calm, but my pulse wasn't. "I love you. You're the reason I stopped."

She looked at me-really looked. Her eyes didn't meet mine.

Then, so softly I almost missed it, she added, "You sleep differently now."

I froze. She didn't elaborate. "Better, I mean," she continued. "Less restless. Less... pacing."

My stomach tightened. "I guess I've been feeling more at peace lately."

She nodded. "Funny."

"Why's that?"

She set the spoon down. "Because I haven't."

We ate in silence. Then she asked, without looking up, "Do you ever dream about her?"

I knew who she was talking about but I didn't answer. Rosy reached for the butter.

"I mean... your mother," she said casually. "The one in the accident."

Still, I said nothing. She glanced up, eyes sharp now. "You know what's interesting?"

"What?" I asked, too quickly.

"I did some reading." She tapped her phone. "On trauma. On repressed memories. How the brain splits when it needs to forget something to survive."

She let the silence stretch. Then: "Sometimes people become strangers to themselves. Split into parts. But sometimes-" she paused, "-they become exactly who they were always meant to be."

I leaned back in my chair.

"What are you saying, Rosy?"

She tilted her head.

"You were always precise and organized. Too observant. Even before I remembered who I was, I knew there was something... deliberate about you."

"I've known for a long time, Edward," she said, voice flat. "Not for sure. Not until a few weeks ago. But I suspected. Years ago."

I blinked. "Years?"

She nodded slowly. "I used to follow you. Long before maybe you even knew my name. I told myself it was curiosity but it wasn't. I was drawn to you because you looked so beautiful yet so haunted. Familiar."

She picked up her coffee cup. Let the steam touch her lips before speaking again.

"At first, I thought I was just projecting but then I started seeing patterns. The way you moved, the things you avoided, the stories in the news. Women who looked just enough like eachother."

She looked at me now, no fear in her eyes. Just exhaustion.

"I didn't want it to be true," she said. "But the day we moved in I found your old phone, the one with the folder you thought you'd hidden... I knew. I stopped lying to myself then."

I opened my mouth but no sound came out.
She leaned closer, just enough for me to feel the weight of what she wasn't saying.

"It's for your mother, isn't it?"

That cracked something. I stared at her but she didn't even flinch.

"Why would you think that?" I said.

"Because I know what grief does when it's left alone too long."

She stood, her face was calm as she took her plate to the sink but her hands were shaking. When she walked past me, I heard her whisper, not words. Just breath. Controlled and quiet. But when her reflection passed through the window glass, something shifted.

The smile she wore? It didn't look like Rosy's.

I stayed still and then I spoke as cautiously as I could. "You know I don't blame you, right?"

She turned halfway, listening.

"None of this is your fault," I said.

"I killed her," she whispered. "And you're here."

"You didn't kill her," I said. "No one did. It was an unfortunate accident." I said trying to convince myself more than her but the sentence still sounded a lie to me.

She waited so I gave her the part of the truth I could afford.

"After the accident," I began, "I was trapped in the car with her. My mother. My father died quickly but she was still alive or at least breathing. Her body was still warm at first. I thought... if I held still, maybe she'd stay that way."

My hands curled into fists under the table.

"Her hair was long and black, just like yours. It clung to my face. Her blood soaked through my shirt. I could even taste it in my mouth."

Rosy said nothing. I kept going.

"I stayed there until the cops pulled me out. Hours. I didn't cry. I didn't move. I just... counted the seconds between her breaths, even after they stopped."

I looked up at her.

"That's when it started," I said. "The quiet need. The shadow of it. I never planned it but the moment always came."

I didn't explain the rest. She didn't ask.

"But not with you," I said. "You don't bring it out. You quiet it. You make it feel like I can stop."

She blinked. There was no tears, just breath.

"I'm sorry," she said. "For dragging this out. For not being enough."

"You're more than enough," I said. "You're the only thing that feels like stillness."

She nodded. Then softly: "I need to lie down."

I let her go. When I grabbed my coat, I found a note folded in the inside pocket. Her handwriting. Neat and precise.

"I'll love every part of you even the ones I shouldn't."

Below it, in a messier scrawl: "But try to hide things from me again, and I'll know."

I left the house without looking back but I swear I heard two people breathing behind the door and only one of them was Rosy.