𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐒 ~| 𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰 𝘕𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘴

Do You Haunt Me?

~'~

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠? 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐝𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬

𝐏𝐮𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

𝐃𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦

𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐞? 𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞?

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

Cassi

The days passed like honey—slow and golden, with a sweetness I hadn't quite expected. Not loud or flashy. Just... good. Peaceful. And that was rarer than anything in my life had ever been.

Mornings bled into afternoons, and I found myself waking up with the sun tangled in my hair and Lando's breath on the back of my neck. He had a way of curling into me like a secret, all warmth and quiet, his fingers brushing along my spine like he was memorizing the lines of a poem he didn't want to forget. And maybe that's what this was. Not a grand story. Not fireworks or cliff dives. Just a poem. Something soft, something steady. Something that lived in the quiet.

We didn't talk about the heavy things. Not all the time. They sat between us sometimes, like ghosts in the room—but they weren't frightening anymore. More like old friends we nodded to on our way out the door. There were bigger things to hold onto. His laugh. The way he squinted when he read something on his phone. The off-key humming he did while brushing his teeth. The world was full of noise, but he never added to it. He made room in it.

We'd stopped by to see Charles and Evie once or twice since the birth. Jules was the softest little thing I'd ever seen—just this tiny, squirmy bundle of life and possibility—and Evie was already back to being her sharp, brilliant self, even if her steps were slower now, and her hands were a little fuller. They were adjusting. And weirdly, beautifully, it seemed like they were okay.

But my mind didn't linger on them too long these days. Not when there was soup on the stove, and Lando's barely-recovering-cold voice calling out for more tissues every twenty minutes. It was tragic, really. A whole Formula One driver, felled by a common virus.

He was on the couch now, buried under two blankets and a throw pillow he insisted wasn't necessary but had very clearly stolen from the bed. His hair was a mess, soft and curling at the ends, and he had that smug sick look—like he'd found a way to make being congested seem charming.

Meanwhile, I was attempting to do something borderline criminal in the kitchen.

Soup. That was the goal. Something comforting. Something warm. Something that didn't taste like sadness and poor decision-making.

But as I stood there, holding a wooden spoon and staring at the saucepan like it had personally offended me, I had the sinking feeling I was creating a chemical weapon and not a nourishing meal.

"Darling?" His voice floated in from the living room, less croaky the yesterday.

"Still alive," I called back.