Page 43 of Beautiful Ruins
Nathan’s chaos still lingered in the air.Not physical mess—he wasn’t that kind of slob.It was the subtle disorder he carried with him.The way he left drawers slightly open.The way he occupied space like it belonged to him but never took responsibility for it.
I walked toward the closet before I even knew I was doing it.
The door creaked softly as I pulled it open.
The duffel bag was gone.
The one he always kept tucked in the back corner.The one I’d never looked through because I’d respected his privacy.Because I’d told myself that trust meant not snooping.Maybe because subconsciously, I hadn’t wanted to find something I couldn’t unsee.
It was gone.
Not just the bag.Everything of his.The jacket he left draped over my chair.The shoes by the door.The spare toothbrush in the bathroom.
He hadn’t just disappeared.
He’d cleaned himself out of my life.
The realization hit harder than the revelation that he was involved in drugs.
He hadn’t tried to find me.He hadn’t called.He hadn’t panicked.
He’d simply…left.
A sound escaped me—half laugh, half something closer to breaking.
I pressed my hands against the kitchen counter and bowed my head.
So this was it.
Two years, reduced to an empty closet and silence.
The heartbreak didn’t come like I expected.It didn’t feel soft or wistful.It felt humiliating.Like I’d been made a fool of and only just realized the audience had already left.
Then something inside me stirred.Not sadness, but rage.It rose hot and clean and purposeful.
I straightened, eyes burning with clarity.I moved.I tore the sheets off the bed and shoved them into a trash bag.I stripped the bathroom shelf of anything that had ever belonged to him.I wiped down surfaces like I could erase fingerprints, history, stupidity.
I scrubbed the sink until my knuckles went white.I opened drawers and slammed them shut.I gathered every stray memory and shoved it into garbage bags like it was contaminated.
“You don’t get to live here anymore,” I breathed.“You don’t get my memories.”
The anger felt better than the shame.It gave me something to hold onto.
By the time I was done, my studio looked different.Not perfect or polished.But more like what it looked like before I met Nathan.
I stood in the middle of it, chest heaving, sweat clinging to my spine.I was done being the girl who fixed broken men.I was done being useful.
I showered quickly, scrubbing at my skin like the past week—and the past two years—could be washed off.I pulled on an oversized sweatshirt and leggings and tied my hair back.
The silence settled in again.This time it felt heavier.
I was halfway across the room when I heard a metallic scrape.
My breath stalled.
Another sound.Closer.The doorknob.Someone was fumbling with it.
Every muscle in my body locked.
