I used to think nightmares were just stories your brain told you when you slept. But mine don't wait for the night anymore. They bleed into my days, creeping in when I least expect them like poison that never leaves the bloodstream. Tonight was no different.
Talia's room was warm and safe, her walls painted with soft shades of peach and fairy lights twinkling gently above the dresser. I lay on the couch in the corner, curled under a cozy throw blanket that smelled faintly of jasmine. It should've calmed me. But nothing has calmed me in days.
I must have dozed off, because the moment my eyes fluttered open, I was gasping for breath.
The dream. The party. The flashing lights. The hands.
I bolted upright with a muffled gasp, heart hammering in my chest, sweat clinging to my skin like a second layer. My hand went instinctively to my stomach as if that could stop the memory from ripping me apart again.
From the bed, a quiet voice broke the silence.
"Ava?"
I looked over. Talia was already sitting up, eyes wide, worry etched into her features. Her curls were a halo in the dim light as she reached for the switch on her nightstand lamp.
"You okay?" she whispered.
I tried to nod, but my throat was too tight. I wiped my face quickly, hoping she didn't notice the tears. "Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."
"You didn't." She got out of bed and came over to sit on the floor beside me. "Was it another nightmare?"
I nodded this time, unable to speak for a moment. The silence settled between us like dust. Then I finally whispered, "It felt so real, Talia. Like I was back there. I could feel everything."
She reached for my hand and held it. "You don't have to talk about it if you're not ready."
I looked at her, grateful but also exhausted. "I'm tired of pretending it didn't happen. I'm tired of carrying it all inside."
Talia squeezed my hand gently. "Then let it out. I'm here. I won't judge you."
So I told her.
About the flashes of memory. About the way my chest tightens every time I think about that night. About how the house keeps haunting me, like it's calling me back. And how sometimes, in the quiet, I wonder if going back there might help me remember more maybe even give me a name, a clue, anything.
Talia listened without interrupting. Her eyes never left mine.
"You think going back is a good idea?" she asked carefully.
I hesitated. "I don't know. But I feel like I need to. To take something back. Even if it's just a piece of me."
She was quiet for a long beat. "Okay. Then I'll come with you."
I blinked. "What?"
"You shouldn't go alone, Ava. If you're going… I'm going too."
The tightness in my chest loosened a little.
I nodded, and we sat there in silence for a while. She didn't push. She didn't lecture. She just sat beside me in the dark. Two girls, holding each other up in a world that didn't care what had been stolen from us.
And for the first time in weeks, I didn't feel entirely alone.
The morning didn't feel like a beginning. It felt like residue, something leftover from a night that hadn't quite ended.
Talia's home was peaceful in the way mine had never been. The scent of lavender air freshener still hung lightly in the room, and soft breathing from the bed reminded me that I wasn't alone. But my thoughts had been louder than sleep. I hadn't closed my eyes for more than a few minutes at a time, each blink filled with flashes of that night, his breath, the cold floor, my own silence screaming through my body.
I got up quietly, almost ritualistically. My clothes felt heavier than usual. My shoes were tight, like they knew where I was going. I didn't leave a message on her phone, i couldn't explain it over text. But I scribbled a note on a piece of paper from her desk. It was the least I could do.
The streets felt foreign. Like I had traveled far beyond the familiar rhythm of my life. The trees lining the road whispered through dry leaves as I walked. The city had started to move, vendors calling out, cars honking, dogs barking in the distance but it all sounded distant to me, like I was underwater.
The house stood at the end of the block like a graveyard memory.
Time had done nothing to it. It remained still, rotting in its own quiet corner of the world, untouched by consequence or justice. The same cracked windows, the same sagging porch. It wasn't just a building, it was a scar. One that refused to fade.
As I stepped onto the porch, the wood beneath my shoes groaned, like it remembered. The front door, half-open, swung further with a reluctant push. Inside, the air was stagnant and bitter, filled with the smell of mold, old cigarettes, and something faintly metallic, blood, maybe, or rust.
I didn't need to be told where to go.
My body remembered. It led me down the narrow hallway with hesitant steps, the walls closing in tighter with each footfall. Dust hung in the air like grief. The light barely reached through the broken blinds, and the silence wrapped around me like a noose.
Every inch of the space brought it back: the flashing lights, the spinning ceiling, the sinking feeling when I realized no one was coming back for me.
My hands trembled as I walked across the living room. There was something almost sacred about returning here, like walking through a battlefield after the war had ended. But nothing had ended. Not really.
I moved slowly toward the hallway, the air thicker there. The carpet was worn and crusted in places. A corner lifted awkwardly, like something had shifted underneath. I stepped on it, and felt a dull metal scrape beneath my foot.
I crouched down, hesitantly pulling the fabric back.
There, covered in dust and grime, was a gold ring.
I stared at it for a long time before reaching out. It wasn't flashy, but it held weight. Literal weight, yes. But emotional weight too. It didn't belong here, and yet somehow, it did. As if it had been left behind by a ghost.
The initials inside were faint but legible: C.R.W, i didn't know what they meant. But I knew they weren't mine. That made them important.
I held the ring in my palm like it might dissolve if I blinked. My mind spiraled through possibilities—had he worn it? Dropped it? Had someone else been here?
Was this a mistake? Was it a clue?
My stomach turned. The nausea wasn't from fear it was from the rage of remembering. Of not having answers. Of knowing people move on, while I'm still standing here trying to feel whole.
I stood up, shoving the ring into my pocket. Something in me had clicked. I had been holding onto pieces of trauma for months. But this was different. This was physical. Tangible. And it wasn't going to disappear.
Suddenly, a sound came from upstairs.
A shift, a creak, something soft and quick, too deliberate to be the wind. I froze as my chest tightened
The room shrank.
Every instinct screamed to run. To not look back. So I did. I ran.
The floorboards screamed beneath me, and the sunlight outside hit my face like cold water as I burst through the door. My breath came out sharp and frantic, my feet stumbling over each other until I reached the sidewalk and slowed.
I didn't turn around. I didn't need to.
Whatever lived in that house, memories, ghosts, people? it could stay there. But the ring... the ring came with me.
Back on the main road, my thoughts spiraled again. What would I even do with this? Could it mean something?
Maybe. Maybe not. But it gave me something I hadn't had before. Direction.
I wasn't sure what came next. I wasn't sure who C.R.W. was. But I knew one thing for certain:
He wasn't going to disappear into the silence like before.
The moment I stepped back into Talia's apartment, it felt like the world was still spinning. My mind was clouded, half of it still stuck in that broken house, the other half replaying the weight of that ring in my pocket like a heartbeat. I hadn't told Talia yet. I wasn't ready. I just needed to breathe, to sit, to exist without thinking for five seconds. But the universe had other plans.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The knock on the door wasn't polite or patient, it was frantic, urgent. Like someone on the edge of a panic attack. I froze, standing in the middle of the living room, still in my sneakers, dirt clinging to the edges of my jeans.
Talia looked up from the couch, startled. "Who the hell...?" Another round of banging. This time louder.
"Ava! I know you're in there! Open this door!" My stomach dropped.
Grace.
Before I could move, Talia was already halfway to the door, confused and wide-eyed. "That sounds like your aunt…"
"I—yeah, it's her." My voice was barely audible. My chest tightened with guilt.
Talia opened the door slowly, cautiously, as if unsure what to expect.
Aunt Grace stormed in like a force of nature, eyes wild, hair pulled back in a messy knot, jacket half-on, half-off like she had left the house without fully dressing. Her face was flushed from the heat, the sun, the worry.
She didn't even acknowledge Talia. Her eyes locked onto me immediately.
"Where have you been?"
Her voice cracked. It was stern, but not angry. it was frantic. It carried the kind of worry that keeps a person awake all night.
"I called you. I texted. I even went to the hospital"
"I'm sorry," I whispered, but it wasn't enough.
"No. You don't get to do this, Ava." She stepped closer, her hands shaking slightly. "You just vanished. After that fight? After you said you were going to" Her voice broke. "I didn't know if you were alive. If you'd done something."
"I didn't."
"Well, I didn't know that!" she yelled!
She ran a hand over her face, pacing now, like she couldn't stand still. "I thought we were finally getting somewhere. You told me. We were finally starting to understand each other."
I swallowed hard, not sure how to explain anything.
Talia stepped in gently, "She stayed here last night. I didn't want to intrude, but I made sure she was okay."
"Shut the fuck up kid" Aunt Grace said as she looked at her. She was still breathing hard.
"Don't talk to her like that, i needed to think," I said, finally. "I couldn't be at home. I just needed...space."
"And you thought not answering my calls was the way to go?"
"I didn't know how to talk to you." I met her eyes, finally. "Not after yesterday."
Her expression wavered. The fight about the abortion. The way we left things, raw and broken. Her stance shifted, arms folding across her chest, but her voice had lost its sharpness.
"I thought you hated me."
"I don't hate you," I whispered. "I just don't know what I'm doing."
Silence stretched between us like a tightrope.
Talia watched us quietly, as if afraid any sound might snap the moment in two.
Aunt Grace exhaled slowly and stepped toward me. She didn't yell. She didn't scold. She just…hugged me.
It was awkward and tight and filled with all the emotions she didn't know how to put into words. I didn't know how much I needed that hug until I melted into it.
When we finally pulled apart, she touched my face gently, her thumb brushing over my cheek.
"You scared me," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I scared myself."
Another pause. Then I took the ring from my pocket.
Her brows furrowed immediately. "What's that?"
"I went back," I said softly. "To the house."
Talia inhaled sharply, but didn't interrupt.
Grace's face paled. "Why would you..?"
"I don't know. I just…needed to go. And I found this." I placed the ring in her palm. "There are initials. C.R.W." She stared at it, stunned.
The silence between us wasn't just about fear anymore. it was about the questions that had no answers yet.
"Do you think it belongs to him?" she finally asked.
"I don't know. But it feels important."
Grace looked up at me with new eyes, not just of a guardian, but of someone who realized this story wasn't over. Not yet.
And in that heavy, silent moment, we all felt it.
Something was about to change.