The house felt cavernous and hollow, as if Arianna had simply dissolved into nothing, leaving behind only the faint impression that someone had once
been there.
But Jayden couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t accept it. His mind was already building new explanations, new justifications for what he’d witnessed.
His breathing gradually steadied as he stared at the wedding dress still hanging in its garment bag, untouched and pristine.
When he finally looked up at his mother and Uncle Charles, his eyes were vacant, like someone had turned off a light behind them.
“The wedding’s canceled,” he said in a voice so quiet it was barely audible.
He swallowed hard, fighting to keep his voice steady. “She’s just… she’s hiding. You scared her. When you leave, she’ll come back out.”
The crack of his mother’s palm against his cheek echoed through the silent house like a gunshot.
SLAP.
if
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2
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7
“STOP IT!” she screamed, her face twisted with anguish. “Arianna is DEAD, Jayden! She’s been dead for ten years! How long are you going to keep doing this to yourself?”
@
Tears were streaming down her face as her voice rose to near–hysteria. “Do you think I called Charles because I was bored? Do you think this is some kind of joke to me?”
“It’s because Mike called me after your dinner! He said you’d completely lost your mind! You were talking to empty air! You introduced him to
someone who WASN’T THERE!”
S
The words hit Jayden like a sledgehammer to the chest. “That’s… that’s not true. Mike’s confused. Why would he say that? Why would he lie?”
He grabbed his mother’s shoulders, his fingers digging in desperately. “Mom, please! You have to believe me! She’s real! Arianna is real! I’ve been living with her for weeks!”
E
His mother’s face crumpled with a mixture of heartbreak and rage. “You want proof? You want to see how fucking real she is? FINE!”
The drive to the cemetery was a nightmare blur of his mother’s sobs and Uncle Charles’s grim silence. Jayden sat in the backseat, his mind racing frantically, trying to find some explanation that would make sense of all this madness.
When the car stopped, they were in a section of the cemetery he recognized but had been desperately trying to avoid.
The headstone was simple gray granite with a photograph embedded in the center–a young woman with warm brown eyes and a gentle smile that
had haunted his dreams for a decade.
Arianna Rose Carter February 14, 1998 – June 8, 2015 Beloved Daughter and Friend Gone Too Soon
Jayden’s knees buckled. He collapsed onto the wet grass, his entire world shattering into a million pieces as he stared at that familiar face frozen in time at seventeen–exactly the age she’d appeared to him in his hallucinations.
“No,” he whispered, his voice barely a breath. “This isn’t… this can’t be…”
But even as he said it, everything clicked into place with horrible, devastating clarity.
Every moment from the past month crashed through his consciousness like a freight train. His constant anxiety about whether she was real. The way salespeople seemed to look right through her, Airport security that never checked her ID. Mike’s obvious confusion during dinner. Harper talking past her like she was invisible.
Every single red flag he’d noticed and rationalized away. Every moment of doubt he’d crushed under the weight of his desperate need to believe.
It had always been just him. Talking to empty air. Making dinner for one while setting two plates. Buying engagement rings for ghosts.
His subconscious had been screaming the truth at him for weeks, and he’d been too terrified to listen.
“God,” he choked out, reaching toward the photograph with trembling fingers. “Oh God, Arianna…”
Chapter 29
Of course he’d nearly collapsed when he walked past this headstone the first time. Some buried part of him had recognized it, had known exactly
what it meant.
As he knelt there in the mud, staring at her face through a blur of tears, the last threads of his delusion finally snapped.
She was gone. She’d been gone for ten years. And he’d been living in a fantasy built from grief and guilt and desperate longing.
The photograph began to blur as his vision darkened around the edges, and then everything went black.
Jayden woke up to the antiseptic smell of a hospital and the soft beeping of monitors.
His mother was slumped in a chair beside his bed, her eyes red and swollen from crying. When she saw him stir, relief flooded her features.
“Thank God,” she breathed. “You collapsed at the cemetery. They said it was some kind of psychological break. I was so scared…”
She reached for his hand, her voice breaking. “I’ve already lost your father. I can’t lose you too, baby. Please don’t leave me.”
Jayden stared at the ceiling tiles, his mind feeling stuffed with cotton. When he spoke, his voice was eerily calm, almost childlike.
“I need to go home, Mom,” he said quietly, like he was discussing the weather. “Arianna’s probably worried about me.”
His mother’s face went white. “Jayden-”
“And Orange gets anxious when I’m not there to feed him dinner,” he continued in that same detached tone. “She doesn’t know how to open the cat food cans yet.”
“Honey, please-”
“If I don’t come home soon, she’ll be scared.”
