Chapter 30
As the sun disappeared behind the horizon, stars began to flicker across the darkening sky.
Jayden couldn’t remember how he’d managed to pull himself together at the hospital–how he’d forced his voice to stay steady, convinced the doctors he was fine, made everyone believe he was stable enough to go home.
Maybe it was the eerie calm that had settled over him that finally convinced his mother to let him leave while she stayed behind with Uncle Charles, desperately searching for answers about what was happening to her son’s mind.
He stood at his front door now, staring at the brass handle with a hollow expression.
“I’m not sick,” he whispered into the empty night air. “Arianna’s inside waiting for me.”
But when his hand touched the doorknob, terror froze him in place.
What if opening this door proved everything they’d told him? What if it shattered the last thread of hope he was clinging to?
“Meow…”
A faint cry came from inside the house.
Orange. Orange was real–he could hear him. Which meant Arianna had to be real too. She had to be.
Hope flared in Jayden’s chest like a match struck in darkness as he fumbled with his keys and burst through the door.
The living room was pitch black and silent.
No warm light from the kitchen. No sound of her humming while she cooked dinner. No Arianna curled up on the couch with a book.
Nothing.
Jayden scooped up Orange, who had wandered over to investigate the noise, and held him against his chest like a lifeline.
“She’s probably just sleeping,” he murmured, his voice cracking. “Let’s go check her room.”
But when he pushed open the bedroom door, the truth hit him like a physical blow.
There were no clothes in the closet. No books on the nightstand. No indentation in the pillow where her head should have rested.
The room looked exactly like it had the day he’d moved in–empty, untouched, waiting for someone who would never come.
Jayden collapsed onto the floor, Orange in his lap, and sobbed until his throat was raw and his chest ached from the force of it.
For days after that, he barely left the room. Friends called, Uncle Charles stopped by, his mother begged him to come stay with her–but nothing could drag him out of that empty space where he’d convinced himself she’d once lived.
He existed in a haze of grief and stubborn delusion, talking to empty air, setting two plates for dinner, buying groceries for a woman who existed only in his fractured mind.
It was Orange who finally brought him the truth, in the cruelest way possible.
The kitten had been playing with something behind the dresser–an old black wallet that must have fallen there months ago. As Orange batted it around, a single photograph slipped out onto the floor.
Their middle school graduation photo. The only picture he had of the two of them together.
Jayden picked it up with shaking hands, his eyes burning as he traced her thirteen–year–old face with his fingertip. Orange had chewed one corner, leaving tiny teeth marks in the paper.
That’s when he saw it–a small piece of paper carefully tucked behind the damaged edge, secured with what looked like dried glue,
Even through his devastation, Jayden felt his lips curve into a broken smile. She’d always done this, even as a kid–hidden little notes and treats in secret places for him to discover.
This time, instead of candy or an encouraging message about a test, it was something that would break his heart all over again.
He unfolded the tiny paper with trembling fingers:
Jayden–I know I won’t live very long. But I hope someday you’ll find a way to be happy without me. Please don’t waste your whole life being sad. Live for both of us. -Your Arianna
The words blurred as tears streamed down his face. Something metallic clinked against the floor beside him–a diamond ring that had rolled out of the
wallet.
The engagement ring. The one he’d imagined sliding onto her finger in his delusions.
Jayden closed his fist around it so tightly the edges cut into his palm, drawing blood.
In this empty house, with only a cat for company, the reality finally settled into his bones: he was completely, utterly alone.
Twenty–seven years crawled by like a slow death.
Jayden had eventually moved back to New York, returned to his surgical practice, built what everyone else would call a successful life. To his colleagues, he was Dr. Hiddleston–brilliant, dedicated, a little eccentric perhaps, but respected in his field.
He never married. Never even tried to date seriously. When people asked why, he’d just smile and change the subject.
Orange had died fifteen years ago, peaceful and old. His mother had passed five years after that, leaving him truly alone in the world.
Now, at forty–seven, Jayden found himself back in Vermont for the first time in decades. The house looked smaller than he remembered, run–down and abandoned.
In the rusted mailbox, buried under years of accumulated junk mail, was a package he’d completely forgotten about.
Seagrove Pottery Studio was printed on the return label.
The sight of it brought everything rushing back–not the sharp pain it once would have caused, but a dull, familiar ache that felt almost comforting
now.
Inside were two letters. One was blank, the paper yellowed with age. The other was in his own handwriting:
Arianna–I’m coming to find you soon. Wait for me.
Jayden carried the letter to the bedroom where he’d spent those lost weeks so long ago.
He sat on the floor with his back against the bed, Orange’s ashes in an urn beside him, Arianna’s engagement ring clutched in one hand and the letter in the other.
At his feet was an empty prescription bottle–the antipsychotic medication he’d been taking faithfully for twenty–seven years, until he’d decided he didn’t need it anymore.
On this ordinary Tuesday afternoon, with sunlight streaming through the dusty windows, Jayden smiled as he felt the last of the pills he’d been hoarding finally take effect.
As consciousness began to slip away, he could swear he saw her standing in the doorway–seventeen years old and beautiful, wearing her school uniform, looking exactly the way she had in his memories.
“Arianna,” he whispered, his voice filled with peace for the first time in nearly three decades. “I finally get to come find you.”
Dr. Jayden Hiddleston died by suicide at the age of forty–seven.
And his childhood sweetheart–his first love, his only love–was still seventeen, still perfect, still waiting for him somewhere beyond the reach of time.
Chapter 1
