I can see you

chapter 20

(EDWARD'S POV)

She settled into my house like she'd been here for years. By the second day, she had a toothbrush in my bathroom, her clothes in my drawers, and her coffee preferences logged into the smart machine that I never used. She played with the curtains, tried every light switch like she was mapping something old. Rearranged the books. Shifted the knives.

I let her. I let her even when I knew what she was doing because I was doing it too. We were both watching, measuring and waiting. But beneath that quiet dance, something else was forming, something that was slower and more dangerous. Something that felt like... care.

The first crack came quietly. She stood in the hallway, one hand resting on the doorframe to the guest room. She didn't open it. Just stared at the wood like it might open on its own. When I passed behind her with a towel slung around my neck, she was startled.

"You alright?" I asked.

She blinked like I'd pulled her out of a trance. "This door..." she murmured. "It feels strange."

"Strange how?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. It feels like I've been here before or maybe dreamed about it."

That was the first time she said it and I knew it wouldn't be the last.

That night, I left the hallway light on and played the old song again. It was from a show Roy liked when we were kids. A cartoon or sitcom or something equally meaningless. She used to hum it without realizing back when we were kids.

I didn't think she remembered it but her body did. She shifted in her sleep, legs tangling in the sheets. Her hand clenched into a fist against her chest. She murmured something too soft at first. Then louder.

"Stop."

And again, thinner and fractured.

"Roy."

I cut the speaker off and sat beside her in the dark, staring at her face.

I didn't know if I wanted Riya back.

Or if I wanted her gone for good.

The next morning, she found my old sketchbook. I hadn't meant to leave it out but killan had convinced me to and maybe, somewhere deep in me, I wanted her to see it too.

Smudges of ink on a graph paper where her face repeated over and over in pencil, younger and sadder each time. Back when I didn't know how to speak to her, only draw her.

She sat on the bed flipping through it like she'd found someone else's diary.

"You drew these?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Who is she?"

"You."

She frowned. "They don't look like me."

"No," I said. "They look like someone I used to know."

She shut the book quietly and didn't touch it again neither did she ask me who it is but she didn't meet my eyes for the rest of the day either.

It was the little things that started slipping first. She picked up a candle from the windowsill and froze when she smelled it. Just a flash, a flinch behind her eyes. "This is... familiar," she said, and set it down like it burned her.

She moved through the house differently after that. Slower like she was retracing someone else's steps.

I caught her standing in front of the cracked mirror in the hallway later that night. Not looking at herself but just... waiting. Like she expected something in the glass to change.

When I said her name, she didn't blink. Just whispered, "I think something's wrong with me."

I wanted to tell her she was right but instead, I stepped beside her and said, "You're fine."

Because I didn't know what else to say.
Because I didn't know if she was Rosy anymore. Because I didn't know if I wanted her to be.

I didn't sleep that night. I just sat in the living room, staring at the walls, running through the sequence of everything that had brought us here, every quiet manipulation, every picture I'd taken, every time I thought I was the one in control.

And now here she was, unraveling in the middle of my home. Becoming someone else or maybe returning to who she always was. I used to think I was going to kill her.
That was the point. That was the plan.

But something in her silence, in her fragility-God help me-it made something ache. She moved through this house like she was already dead. Like the walls knew her name and she was just waiting for them to whisper it back. And all I could think was:

What if I don't want her to disappear? What if I want her to stay? Not Rosy. Not Riya. Just... her.

The thought made me sick because I knew what I was and love isn't something people like me get to feel. Not real love. Not the kind you build a future on.

The kind I feel?
It corrodes. It consumes. It kills.

She doesn't know who I am, not really. She hasn't seen the files. She doesn't know what's under the floorboards or behind the locked room that I claim to be my store room. She doesn't know how much blood it took to get to her.

If she ever finds out... I don't know if she'll leave me or if she'll ask me to teach her.

A text pinged on my phone. Killian.

Still watching. She's close. Don't rush.

I stared at it for a long time. He wasn't talking about cameras-not anymore. He didn't need surveillance when he could read my silences. Killian always knew when I was slipping. When obsession softened into something messier.

I had told him Rosy moved in. I didn't have to though because he always figured things out before I said a word. But lately, I'd been wondering. How much had he really figured out on his own? How long had he known that she had taken me? I deleted the message, but the words stayed with me.

Still watching. That was the thing about Killian, he never needed a screen to see the truth and maybe... he wasn't just watching me anymore.

The next morning, she asked me something simple.

"Have we ever been to the coast together?"

I didn't know if by we she meant us together or separately but either way the answer was the same, "No." I replied flatly.

Her eyes narrowed. "Are you sure? I remember you standing by a beach. The water was red."

"It's a dream," I said. "Don't worry."

She didn't respond but later, I caught her unpacking a box. It had some photos of two teenage girls and maybe a diary. I was so shocked by the photos that even before I knew I was walking towards it. When she saw me approaching she didn't say anything. Just closed the lid slowly.

That was it. I knew what had to happen. I had done all I could. The shadows, the sketches, the music. But if I wanted the truth, I'd have to take her back to where it started.

Back to the ashes.