My boyfriend, Jordan Gilbert, was a hollow man. He had almost no wants, no feelings, none of the things that move ordinary people.

In six years together, I had never once heard him say "I love you," and I had never felt a single ripple of emotion in him.

His kisses were cold. His embraces were going through the motions. Even in bed, in the most intimate moments two people could share, his eyes stayed as still as dead water.

Then one day, after a company team outing, I walked out of the haunted house with him.

His eyes were red, his voice choked and trembling. "Carrie, I finally understand what it feels like to be alive."

I cried with joy, thinking six years of ice had finally begun to thaw at one corner.

That very day I bought a year pass to the haunted house and told him, "Let's come here often from now on, all right?"

After that, every other day, Jordan would go and run the whole thing again.

I thought he was just chasing that rare flicker of feeling. What I didn't expect was to catch him at it. The man who was distant and cold to every outsider was smiling at a haunted house actress, some young woman playing an NPC.

Humbling himself, all just to beg her to stay for one meal.

"Penny, I don't care whether you can speak, because it's only when I'm with you that I can feel my heart beating!"

I slipped away quietly, my face streaked with tears.

That night, after the usual, I did what I always did. I curled up against Jordan's bare back and asked softly, "Jordan, when we finish, does your heart pound hard?"

"Or is it that it only bothers to move when you're looking at her?"

...

His arm slid off my waist. "You went to the haunted house today."

His voice was flat. That face I'd looked at for six years had gone cold as early-winter frost.

"Why didn't you just come in and ask me?"

I looked at him and swallowed hard, forcing everything down.

In six years, the times he'd shown me any love could be counted on one hand, and every time I coaxed the word "love" out of him it came out like a block of wood.

Only in bed did the faintest ripple ever cross his face.

I understood that. I accepted all of it.

Until today, backstage at the haunted house, when I saw him smile at that girl, the one called Penelope Pruitt.

Like all the winter snow had melted at once.

That was when it hit me. He wasn't a man without feelings. He'd just built a wall of ice in front of me.

Then Jordan spoke, a little faster than usual.

"The story in that place is just so good! I got so deep into it that I projected all those feelings onto the NPC. Let me apologize, all right?"

"But I can cry now, I can laugh. Aren't you happy for me? Carrie, I can feel things now."

I couldn't smile.

Those feelings, good or bad, love or hate, all of them existed because of another girl.

Robert Bishop, who owned the haunted house, had told me long ago that Jordan asked for Penelope Pruitt every single time he came. The scenario changed by the day, but all he needed was Penelope standing in that one spot.

"You have no idea. Penny is incredible. She always shows up right where I need her, like she knows exactly where I'm going to run into danger every time! I've never felt anything like it. Like she's my savior. Do you understand?"

Jordan was talking more now, rambling as he described his new discovery.

I opened my mouth. My throat had gone tight.

But every one of those scenes that made his scalp prickle, I had written them.

Penelope was only an NPC, a mute both on and off the stage. All she had to do was hit her marks and follow the script I gave her.

What Jordan believed was some deep bond with Penelope came from nothing but how well I knew him.

My phone buzzed.

Robert, the haunted house owner, had sent a video. "Don't say I didn't tell you. This is the clip your Jordan specifically asked me to shoot for him. I figured you should see it first. He still doesn't know it's you."

The footage was dark, but clear enough. Jordan Gilbert reached out and took a girl's hand, and a moment later she pulled him into her arms.

It was that same day.

When he came out of the haunted house, he looked at me with red-rimmed eyes, his voice breaking as he tried to steady it. "Carrie, I finally know what it feels like to be alive."

But the woman who held his hand inside that place was me.

I have a panic disorder. For him, I forced myself in, swallowing triple my dose beforehand.

I was afraid the story beats would be too much, that they'd make his condition worse, so even choking on my own fear, I went in to stay beside him.

But I was afraid of wounding his pride, so the moment it ended, I hurried back out.

And let Penelope Pruitt take my place.

I never imagined I'd been sewing a wedding dress for someone else all along.

In the few short minutes it took me to watch that video, he'd said Penelope's name at least ten times.

"Could you please stop saying her name?"

My voice cracked.

Jordan paused, and his eyes went hollow again. "What's wrong? Did I do something wrong again?"

That line again.

Six years, and every time we touched anything close to feeling, this was all he had. Like he used his emotional disorder to trap me, to force me to drop the subject every single time.

"Jordan, who is your girlfriend, exactly? What has a mute girl like Penelope ever done to make you happy? All of that was a script. Do you even understand what a script is?"

He looked at me, and for once something surfaced in his eyes.

"Caroline, when did you get so cruel?"

I thought he'd fight with me.

But after two seconds of silence, he picked up his coat, opened the door, and walked out.

An hour and a half later, Robert Bishop messaged me. "Why'd your Jordan show up in the middle of the night?"

"Oh, right, you still haven't sent me the new script. He's stuck running an old one tonight, so no promises on the effect."

I wrote back, "Okay. Is Miss Pruitt still with him?"

A thumbs-up came through from the other end.

"You called it exactly. No wonder you're our top-selling writer!"

I let out a faint scoff and turned the screen dark.

It isn't that I can predict him. It's that I know Jordan's nature too well.

Six years ago, when we first met, I'd already heard about the famous Golden Boy Gilbert, and especially about his condition.

He looked like some finely carved statue, and inside he was cold to the point of emptiness.

After we got together, I thought love could fill those hollow places. But it turned out a hollow man isn't a man without feeling. His heart simply refused to beat for me.

"The penthouse suite you reserved at the Lakeview Hotel is ready. Seven o'clock tomorrow evening."

When the text popped up, I froze for a second.

I'd already guessed Jordan meant to propose at tomorrow night's anniversary. I just never thought he could be careless enough to leave the confirmation linked to my number in the app.

So the message came straight to me.

Even before that, I'd been getting a surprise ready myself.

Two red lines I'd found half a month ago. I'd meant to announce it on the anniversary.

To tell him, too, that there wasn't nothing between us. That there was at least one life we could bring into the world.

But now it all felt pointless.

Did Jordan actually care?

The year I met him, I had a speech disorder. I was a "little mute" too.

No one in class wanted anything to do with me. Even talking to me seemed like too much to ask. Only he did. Everyone called him cold, yet he was the one who stepped in when I got cornered in the stairwell and nearly bullied.

He looked out for me for half a semester, until I transferred away.

Later, when we met again, I fought my way back to speaking, and I was certain of the warmth underneath his silence.

Once I mentioned offhand that a pair of shoes rubbed my heels raw. The next day, someone had lined the heels with blister pads.

After we got together, I never had to order for myself. Every time we went to a restaurant, he'd read through the whole menu first, then rattle off the dishes I'd casually mentioned wanting over the past few days, pushing them across the table with a blank face. "See if it's these."

I thought that was liking someone. Caring.

I also thought I owned a little patch of ground in his heart. But now I wasn't sure.

Maybe it was just the gentleman's manner carved into Jordan's bones. He'd have done the exact same thing for any girl.

To put it bluntly, the two of us were more like roommates who had no business being together. Different habits, different values. The only thing in sync was that bit of business in bed.

A wave of nausea surged up my stomach. I clapped a hand over my mouth and dry-heaved a few times, and then the cold spread through me.

It was past midnight when Jordan came home.

He changed his shoes. His face carried a rare irritation. "Why aren't you asleep yet? Waiting for me?"

"Tonight's script was terrible. So flat it put me to sleep. I could tell what would jump out next with my eyes closed."

He went on to himself, as if the earlier fight and awkwardness had quietly passed.

"And Penelope was strange today. The second she came out she got right up in my face to scare me. I tried to say hello and she acted like she didn't know me and just kept doing it!"

He kept griping about how cold Penelope had been, and the disappointment in his eyes was plain to see.

It was the first time in six years he'd poured this much emotion out to me. Yet I sat there and felt like my ears were wrapped in a layer of something.

Hollow inside.

That familiar feeling came back, a thousand words jamming up in my throat.

Then Jordan glanced down at his phone, and I caught the contact name at the top of the message thread.

Penelope again.

"Penny says she doesn't dislike me. She just had no choice, because she was working, so she had to do the job strictly by the book."

Jordan lifted his head, his tone full of urgency. "I think I need to go clear things up with her. When I left just now, I treated her really badly."

When he said "Penny," the ends of those two syllables shot up wildly. It wasn't simple excitement.

I raised my eyes and, without thinking, looked at the back of his neck.

Below the collar, that faint blue-green glowing stamp was still there.

Seven days ago, when the haunted house game ended, the staff pressed a stamp onto the back of every player's neck. And Jordan's had been stamped by Penelope's own hand.

"What's that? Why is it still there? Jordan, aren't you a germaphobe?"

Jordan paused, as if he hadn't expected me to notice such a small detail. Then he slipped back into that usual look that gave away neither joy nor sorrow.

"Forgot to wash it off. It's just a stamp. Are you really going to make an issue of this too?"

Before, when we kissed, even if my lipstick smudged onto his face, he'd wipe it again and again with a disinfectant wipe.

And that stamp had been pressed onto who knew how many people.

I nodded. I was smiling, and then the tears came down.

He couldn't even be bothered to humor me.

I threw the cup off the table. Glass sprayed everywhere. The emotion overwhelmed me, and my stomach churned again.

The next second, I bent over and dry-heaved.

Jordan quickly caught my arm and pulled out a tissue and handed it to me, fast, the motions of someone who was nervous.

But his brow didn't so much as furrow. He looked utterly unruffled.

It made me sick to watch.

"Where's your ring box?"

His pants pocket had been bulging these past few days. I'd guessed long ago what was inside, which was why I'd known he meant to propose.