She stood in the foyer with three suitcases and a belly that curved under her silk blouse like a statement.

I didn't move. Couldn't. My fingers were still wrapped around the handle of my own front door — except it wasn't mine anymore, was it? Not when Sierra Castro smiled at me like she'd been given the keys to a kingdom I didn't know I'd lost.

"Emberly," she said. Warm. Sympathetic. The voice she used in the office when someone's presentation ran long. "Dillon didn't tell you I was coming?"

I looked past her. Down the hall. Toward the bedroom where my husband — where Dillon — was probably on a call. Closing a deal. Pretending I didn't exist.

"No," I said. My voice came out thin. "He didn't."

Sierra's hand drifted to her stomach. A practiced gesture. She'd done it at the office too, during meetings, when she wanted everyone to remember what she was carrying.

Who she was carrying.

"Well." She stepped inside. Past me. Her perfume was different from mine. Sharper. "I'm sure he meant to. He's been so busy."

I watched her roll the largest suitcase toward the living room. She moved through the space like she'd memorized it. Like she'd been here before.

She had been here before.

I pressed my back against the door. The hallucination flickered at the corner of my vision — sixteen-year-old Dillon, the one with the soft eyes and the hoodie he never washed, standing by the window. He looked at me. Shook his head slowly.

*Don't let her stay.*

But I didn't say anything. I never did anymore.

Sierra set her purse on the dining table. My table. The one my mother had picked out years ago, before the accident, back when I still had a family that wasn't just Dillon.

"I hope you don't mind," Sierra said. She pulled out a chair. Not any chair. *My* chair. The one facing the window, where the light came in best in the mornings. "Dillon said I should make myself comfortable."

She sat.

I stared at her. At the way her hands folded over her belly. At the way she looked at me — not cruel, not even unkind. Just… patient. Like she was waiting for me to understand something she'd already figured out.

"Where—" I stopped. Swallowed. "Where am I supposed to sit?"

Sierra blinked. Tilted her head. "Oh, sweetie. Anywhere you like."

The boy by the window flickered again. His mouth moved. *Tell her to leave. Tell him to make her leave.*

But Dillon's voice came from down the hall before I could find mine.

"Sierra?" He sounded relieved. Happy, even. "You made it."

I turned. He walked into the living room in his shirtsleeves, tie loosened, phone still in his hand. He looked at her first. Smiled at her first.

Then he saw me.

The smile didn't exactly fade. It just… shifted. Became something else. Something polite and distant, like I was a colleague he'd forgotten to CC on an email.

"Emberly," he said. "Good. You're home."

"Dillon." My throat was tight. "What's happening?"

He glanced at Sierra. She gave him a small nod. Encouraging. The way you'd nod at a child about to recite something they'd practiced.

"Sierra's going to stay here for a while," he said. Casual. Like he was telling me we were out of milk. "The pregnancy's been hard on her. She needs somewhere stable."

"Stable," I repeated.

"Her apartment's a fourth-floor walk-up. It's not safe."

I looked at Sierra. At the way she sat in my chair, her hand on her belly, her eyes on Dillon like he was the only person in the room.

"This is my home," I said.

Dillon's jaw tightened. "It's my home too. And I'm telling you she's staying."

Something in my chest cracked. Not broke. It had broken a long time ago. This was just another fracture in something already ruined.

"For how long?"

"As long as she needs."

I stepped forward. My hands were shaking. "Dillon. Please."

He looked at me then. Really looked. And for a second — just a second — I thought I saw something. Guilt, maybe. Regret.

But then Sierra shifted in her chair, and his eyes went back to her.

"Don't make this harder than it has to be," he said.

I reached for his arm. My fingers closed around his wrist. Tight. Desperate.

"Dillon—"

He pulled back. Hard. His hand caught mine, wrenched it away, and my sleeve slid up.

We both saw them.

The scars. Thin white lines across my inner wrist. Some old. Some new. Some still pink.

Dillon stared. His grip loosened. For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then he let go.

"Jesus, Emberly," he said. Quiet. Disgusted. "Stop embarrassing yourself."

He walked past me. Toward Sierra. Toward the woman in my chair.

I stood there, my sleeve still pushed up, my wrist burning where he'd grabbed it.

Sierra looked at me. Her expression was soft. Sympathetic.

She smiled.

That night, I sat in the guest bedroom. The one we used to keep for visitors we never had.

The boy appeared beside me. Sixteen. Hoodie. Eyes that still knew how to be kind.

"Don't listen to him," he whispered. "He's not me. He's not me anymore."

I knew he wasn't real.

I talked to him anyway.

It was the only conversation I had left.

I set the table at six.

Two plates. Two wine glasses. Candles I'd bought that morning because the old ones were burned down to nothing. I wore the dress from our wedding rehearsal. Cream silk. It still fit, though I'd lost weight I didn't have to lose.

Dillon said he'd be home by seven.

Seven came. Then eight. Then nine.

I sat in my chair. The one Sierra hadn't taken yet. I watched the candles burn lower. Wax pooled on the table. I didn't move to stop it.

The food got cold. I'd made his favorite. Steak. Medium rare. Garlic butter. I remembered because I remembered everything about him. Every preference. Every passing comment. I'd built my life around the architecture of his needs.

At ten, I checked my phone.

Nothing.

I called. It rang four times. Voicemail.

"Hey," I said. My voice sounded small in the empty room. "Just wondering when you'll be home. I made dinner. It's our anniversary."

I hung up. Stared at the screen.

Five years ago tonight, we'd stood in front of two hundred people and promised forever. He'd looked at me like I was the only person in the room. Like I was the only person in the world.

I couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at me at all.

The boy appeared across the table. Sixteen. Hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He looked at the candles. At the cold steak. At me.

"He forgot," he said quietly.

I shook my head. "He's just working late."

"Emberly."

"He'll be here."

But I didn't believe it. And the boy knew I didn't believe it. He always knew.

At midnight, I picked up my phone again.

I didn't mean to open social media. I'd stopped posting months ago. Stopped looking at other people's lives. It hurt too much to see what happiness looked like when you couldn't remember the shape of it.

But I opened it anyway.

Sierra's profile loaded first.

She'd posted twenty minutes ago.

A photograph. Close-up. The curve of her collarbone. Soft lighting. And there — resting against her skin like it had always belonged to her — was the crescent-moon pendant.

My necklace.

The one I'd sketched at fifteen. The one I'd had cast in silver because Dillon said the moon was ours. The one I'd worn every day until he told me to stop wearing it because it "didn't go with anything."

I'd put it in a drawer. I thought he'd forgotten about it.

He hadn't forgotten.

He'd just given it to someone else.

The caption was simple. Six words.

*He said the moon belongs to me now.*

I stared at the screen until it blurred.

The boy was standing now. His hands were fists. "That's yours. He can't—"

"He did."

"Emberly, that's *yours*—"

"It doesn't matter."

"It matters!" His voice cracked. Young. Desperate. "I gave you that. I *promised* you—"

"You're not real."

He stopped. Looked at me. His face was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.

"I know," he whispered.

I set the phone down. My hands were shaking. I stood. Walked to the candles. Blew them out one by one. Smoke curled toward the ceiling. The room went dark.

I sat back down.

I didn't cry. I'd run out of tears somewhere around month three of Sierra's pregnancy. Now there was just this. Emptiness. A hollow space where something vital used to be.

I picked up my phone again. I didn't want to. But I couldn't stop.

I scrolled.

There was an email notification. A press release. Ortiz Capital Group. I almost deleted it. Then I saw the subject line.

*Harper Family Charitable Foundation — Acquisition Finalized.*

My chest went tight.

I opened it.

The foundation my parents built. The one that funded art programs for kids who couldn't afford supplies. The one with their names on the building. The one I'd stayed on the board of even after they died because it was the last piece of them I had left.

Sold.

To fund a new venture. A tech startup. Something about sustainable luxury goods.

Sierra's idea. Her name was in the press release. *Proposed by Senior Advisor Sierra Castro.*

Dillon had signed off on it. His signature was at the bottom of the document. Neat. Confident. Final.

He'd sold my parents.

He'd sold their memory. Their work. Their legacy.

For her.

I closed the email. Set the phone on the table. Stared at the cold steak. The pooled wax. The empty chair across from me.

The boy was gone.

Even the hallucination couldn't stay for this.

I sat in the dark until the sun came up.

Dillon came home at seven in the morning. Tie loose. Shirt wrinkled. He smelled like her perfume.

He looked at the table. At the candles burned down to nothing. At me, still sitting in yesterday's dress.

"You waited up?" he said.

I didn't answer.

He sighed. Ran a hand through his hair. "I told you I had a late meeting."

"It's our anniversary," I said.

He blinked. For a second, something crossed his face. Then it was gone.

"Right," he said. "Sorry. I'll make it up to you."

He walked past me. Toward the bedroom. Toward the shower. Toward whatever came next in a day that didn't include me.

I sat at the table.

I didn't move.

I didn't speak.

I just sat there, in the ruins of a marriage I'd already lost, and waited for nothing at all.

I found him in his study at midnight.

He was on his laptop. Tie gone. Shirtsleeves rolled up. The blue light from the screen made his face look older than thirty. Harder.

I stood in the doorway. My phone was in my hand. Sierra's post was still open. The crescent moon against her collarbone. The caption that had lived in my chest like a knife for three days.

"Dillon," I said.

He didn't look up. "Not now."

"I need to talk to you."

"Emberly." He kept typing. "I have a seven a.m. call with Singapore. Whatever it is can wait."

"The necklace," I said.

His hands stopped. Just for a second. Then he kept typing.

"What about it?"

"You gave her my necklace."

"It was in a drawer."

"It was mine."

He sighed. Closed the laptop. Looked at me finally. His eyes were flat. Tired. Like I was a problem he'd been trying to solve for too long.

"It was a piece of jewelry you weren't wearing," he said. "Sierra liked it. I gave it to her. That's it."

"You *promised*—"

"Jesus Christ." He stood. Walked to the window. "Do you hear yourself? It's a necklace, Emberly. A thing. It doesn't mean anything."

I stepped into the room. My hands were shaking. "You said the moon was ours. You said you'd never lie to it. I designed that necklace because of what you said—"

"I was sixteen."

"You meant it."

"I was a kid." He turned. His voice was sharp now. Cutting. "And you need to stop living in the past like some kind of—" He stopped. Shook his head. "I don't have time for this."

"And the foundation," I said. My voice cracked. "You sold my parents' foundation."

His jaw tightened. "That was a business decision."

"It was their legacy."

"It was a bleeding liability. We were pouring money into a charity with no ROI, no strategic value—"

"It helped kids—"

"It helped your guilt." He stepped closer. "You've been clinging to that foundation like it could bring them back. It can't. They're dead, Emberly. And the foundation was dead weight."

I stared at him. At this man who used to hold my face in his hands and tell me I was his whole world.

"You didn't even ask me," I whispered.

"I didn't need to. I'm the CEO. I made the call."

"It was mine—"

"It was *ours*. Ortiz Capital owned forty percent. I leveraged it. That's what I do."

"For her," I said. "For Sierra's project. You sold my parents for her."

Dillon's face went cold. "Don't be dramatic."

"You gave her my necklace. You sold my parents' work. You moved her into my home—"

"*My* home," he said. His voice dropped. Quiet. Dangerous. "My name is on the deed. My money paid for it. And I will decide who stays here."

I took a step back. The air felt thin.

"That necklace was your promise," I said. My voice was barely there. "You said you'd never lie to the moon."

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he said the words that ended everything.

"Promises expire, Emberly. Grow up."

I didn't remember leaving the study. I didn't remember walking down the hall. I was just suddenly in the guest room, door closed, back against the wood, sliding down until I hit the floor.

The boy appeared. Sixteen. Hoodie. He knelt in front of me.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

I shook my head. "You're not real."

"I know."

"He's not you anymore."

"I know."

I pulled my knees to my chest. "I don't know what to do."

The boy reached out. His hand hovered over mine. He couldn't touch me. He never could. But he tried anyway.

"You have to leave," he said softly. "Please. You can't stay here."

"I have nowhere to go."

"Anywhere. Anywhere is better than this."

I closed my eyes. "I'm so tired."

"I know."

I didn't leave the guest room after that.

Not the next day. Not the day after.

I heard Dillon leave for work. Heard Sierra's voice in the kitchen. Heard them laugh about something I couldn't make out.

I stopped eating. Food felt impossible. Everything felt impossible.

The boy stayed with me. He sat on the floor. Held my hand in the dark even though his hand wasn't real. Sometimes he said my name. Just my name. Over and over. Like he was trying to keep me tethered to something.

On the second morning, I woke up and he was standing at the foot of the bed.

His face was different. Urgent. Scared.

"Emberly," he said. "You have to leave. Now."

I didn't move.

"Please," he said. His voice cracked. "You have to go. I can't keep reaching you from here."

"Where would I go?"

"I don't know. But you can't stay. Something's coming. Something bad. Please."

I looked at him. At the boy who wasn't real. Who had never been real. Who was just my mind's last desperate attempt to remember what love felt like.

"Okay," I whispered.

I didn't know if I meant it.

But I said it anyway.

Because even a hallucination deserved to be heard.