Chapter 4

After Ian left, Evelyn locked herself in her room. Moonlight filtered through the sheer curtains, scattering like crushed silver on the floor, but the tears in her eyes felt colder than that light. Her phone screen lit up and dimmed repeatedly—messages from Liam, one after another, like spreading mold crawling across the screen. "Evelyn, stop making a scene. Come back, and we'll talk properly." "Maya isn't feeling well. I took her to the hospital first." "What happened back then was my fault, but Maya pressured me into it." Evelyn looked at these words, her knuckles white from gripping the phone. Five years of feelings had ultimately boiled down to these excuses, their very punctuation reeking of hypocrisy. She remembered five years ago in Kingswood, Liam had been the same. After she caught him kissing Maya in a bar, he sent a long string of explanatory texts, saying it was just a drunken mistake. Back then, she believed him, like a fool clutching shards of glass, and chose to