Chapter 2: The Things We Burn

POV: Adrian

The door shut. Finally.

Rule 1. Nothing old comes into this house

I said it for Maria. I meant it for Lucy. But the words cut my throat on the way out.

Three steps. Hand on the wall. The marble is ice. Not as cold as her voice: I didn't ask to be.

No. She didn't ask. I bought.

The first time I met her was when she was 16. Her aunt dragged her to some gala in a dress that swallowed her. She looked like she'd rather burn the place down than curtsy. Then she saw me staring.

And smiled. At me. A stranger.

What the hell was that smirk? Do something? I dare you? Or just I caught you?

I've spent five years trying to decode it.

The second time I met her was two years later. She was 18. NYU coffee shop. Black coffee, no sugar. She laughed at the barista's stupid joke and she walked out. Even though she looked at me once. No recognition.

Maybe I'm one more guy she ruined without noticing. One more trophy she didn't bother to display.

The third time: That same night. Her scholarship dinner. She walked on stage in that same damn sweater - faded blue, hole in the sleeve - and took money from a foundation with my name scrubbed off it. She smiled like her parents were in the front row.

I started stalking her before the applause died. 3 years, 2 months, and 11 days ago.

Every photo. Every scholarship check. Every swipe of her student ID. Dorm cameras. Library cameras. I knew her GPA. I knew when she ran out of dining dollars. I knew the exact Tuesday she sat on the floor and cried because it was the day her parents died. I knew when she bought thread and fixed that hole in her favourite sweater for the third time.

I closed deals worth billions faster than I closed the distance between us. But I couldn't buy back a single night she spent cold.

3 years, 2 months, and 11 days later, she's 21. Ink's dry on the contract. She's in my house. Mine.

And I am the one throwing things away.

The phone buzzed. Incinerator 2200: Confirm disposal of Mrs. Adrian's textile items?

Textile items. Like her favourite sweater is a textile, like those three jagged stitches aren't a goddamn indictment.

Someone let her waltz around in broken things. For years. While I watched. While I lived in silk.

Security feed. Master closet, cam 4.

She hasn't moved. Maria's gone. Lucy's just standing there, arms around herself like she's holding her organs in.

Then she drops. Palm flat to the marble where her sweater was. Like she's checking for a ghost.

My thumb hits my pulse. Same place I touched on her wrist. It's still rioting.

Confirm disposal?

Delay. 0600.

Basement*.* Incinerator room. Smells like scorched metal. The bag's already tagged: MRS. ADRIAN- DISCARD.

I rip it open.

Faded blue. The hole's obscene up close. Her stitches are uneven, and angry. Hers.

I press it to my face.

Smells like a mix of dust and her.

My chest caves in.

Nothing that smells like before, I said.

Liar.

I fold it like it's a wounded bird. Jeans. T-shirt with ghost letters. All of it.

Office. Safe behind the Rothko. Not the one with cash. Not the one with guns. The empty one.

I lay her favourite sweater down. Smooth the sleeve.

Security pings: Master bedroom: motion.

Feed.

She's on the bed. Not sleep. She hurled the silk robe to the floor, and she's curled on the bare mattress, clutching a pillow like it'll keep her from drowning.

Like she won't let anything I own touch her.

You'll learn to like it, I told her.

I hope she never forgives me for that.

Safe shuts.

I'm building a shrine.

3 years, 2 months, 11 days of knowing her blood type and not knowing if she's ever dreamed of me.

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