Chapter 28
Jayden couldn’t take it anymore–this constant terror that she might vanish, this feeling like he was living on borrowed time with a ghost.
If they got married, she’d be his wife. Legally, officially, permanently. No one could take her away from him then.
Arianna didn’t seem surprised by his desperate proposal. She just smiled with that ethereal calm that had been unsettling him for weeks.
“Okay,” she said simply. “If that’s what you want.”
The next morning, Jayden was up before dawn, his phone buzzing with frantic calls and texts.
He messaged his mom first–Getting married today. Want to see Arianna one more time?-then started calling everyone else who mattered. Friends, colleagues, distant relatives. Anyone who could witness this, make it real.
By ten AM, they were standing in an upscale bridal boutique, surrounded by acres of white silk and crystal beading.
Jayden watched Arianna drift between the dresses like she was sleepwalking, her fingers barely grazing the fabric as if she couldn’t quite feel it.
“Take your time,” he said, reaching out to touch her face. His fingers felt strangely cold against her skin. “Find something that makes you feel
beautiful.”
But Arianna turned to him with that lost, helpless expression that had been appearing more and more lately.
“You pick,” she whispered. “I trust your judgment more than my own.”
The words sent ice through his veins, but he forced himself to choose–a simple off–the–shoulder gown with a cathedral train that would look stunning
on her delicate frame.
When she emerged from the fitting room twenty minutes later, Jayden’s heart nearly stopped.
She looked exactly like she had at seventeen. Not similar–exactly. The same hollow cheeks, the same bird–like wrists, the same fragile thinness that had worried him so much during her worst days in high school.
“Jesus, Arianna,” he said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “Have you been eating anything? You look like you did when…”
He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“When what?” she asked, tilting her head with genuine confusion.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “You look perfect. You always look perfect.”
But his hands were shaking as he helped her out of the dress.
When they got home, there was a package waiting on the front steps. The return address made his stomach lurch: Seagrove Pottery Studio.
Had it really been a month? Time felt like it was moving in weird, disconnected jumps lately–hours that felt like minutes, days that seemed to last forever.
Inside the box, wrapped in bubble wrap and tissue paper, was a single ceramic mug. Orange tabby stripes, perfectly glazed, exactly like the photo they’d used as reference.
Just one mug.
Jayden stared at the empty box, his heart hammering against his ribs. Where was his mug? The dog mug they’d made together? There should have been two.
With trembling hands, he placed the lone mug in the kitchen cabinet and tried not to think about what it meant.
An hour later, his mom arrived with Uncle Charles in tow. The moment they walked through the door, Jayden knew something was catastrophically
wrong
His mother’s eyes were already red and swollen from crying. Uncle Charles looked like he’d aged ten years since their last visit.
“Mom?” Jayden said, moving toward her instinctively. “What’s wrong? Why do you both look like someone died?”
His mother let out a sob that sounded like it was being ripped from her chest.
Uncle Charles put a gentle hand on his shoulder, “Jayden, I need to ask you something, and I need you to be completely honest with me.”
“Okay…”
“Do you see Arianna right now? In this room with us?”
The question hit him like a physical blow. “What the fuck kind of question is that? She’s sitting right there on the couch. Are you blind?”
Uncle Charles closed his eyes like he was in agony. “The medication I’ve been giving you… Jayden, have you been taking it like I told you to?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Those aren’t vitamins or supplements.” Uncle Charles’s voice was barely above a whisper. “They’re antipsychotic medication. For treating delusional episodes and hallucinations.”
The words hit Jayden like a sledgehammer to the chest. His mother’s crying got louder, more desperate.
“You’re lying,” Jayden said, his voice climbing toward hysteria. “You’re both fucking lying to me! She’s real! She’s sitting right fucking there!”
“Jayden-”
“NO!” He was screaming now, his whole body shaking with rage and terror. “I can see her! I can touch her! We went to North Carolina together! We got engaged! She’s REAL!”
Uncle Charles looked at him with such profound sadness that it made Jayden’s blood run cold.
“We never mentioned seeing anyone, son. You’re the one telling us someone’s here.”
The words hung in the air like a death sentence.
“I think you’ve known the truth for a while now,” Uncle Charles continued gently. “Part of you has always known that Arianna died ten years ago. You
just couldn’t accept it.”
8
Jayden felt like he was drowning. He spun around to look at the couch, desperate to prove them wrong.
It was empty.
The living room was completely, utterly empty except for Orange, who was sitting in a patch of sunlight, staring at him with those huge, unblinking
eyes.
His gaze fell on the kitchen cabinet, where that single ceramic mug sat alone on the shelf like an accusation.
One mug. Not two. Just one.
Everything he’d built, everything he’d believed, everything that had given his life meaning for the past month–it all crumbled to dust in an instant.
The air left his lungs in a rush. His vision went white around the edges. His knees buckled, and he had to grab the back of a chair to keep from falling.
Then the panic hit.
Jayden tore through the house like a man possessed, throwing open every door, checking every corner, every hiding spot he could think of.
“Arianna!” he screamed, his voice cracking with desperation. “ARIANNA!”
“This isn’t happening! This can’t be real! She was just here!”
“She’s just scared! She’s hiding because you’re frightening her!”
