Without another word, I turned and walked toward the grand staircase, each step feeling heavy, deliberate. I could feel their eyes on my back, a hundred tiny daggers of judgment. Keifer's gaze was the heaviest of all. He frowned, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes, but he didn't move. He stayed with Kallie.
My old bedroom was just as I'd left it six years ago, a shrine to a girl who no longer existed. I shut the door and turned the lock, the click echoing in the silence. My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I slid down the door until I was crumpled on the plush carpet.
My hand trembled as I pulled out my phone. I found Dr. Evans's direct line in my contacts.
He answered on the second ring. "Aurore?"
"Tell me," I said, my voice cracking. "Tell me the truth. No more 'it varies.' I need to know the worst-case scenario."
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. I could hear the rustle of papers, the soft click of a keyboard. He was stalling.
"Doctor," I pressed, a desperate edge to my voice. "Please."
He sighed, a sound of pure weariness. "Based on the latest cell degradation analysis... the most aggressive projections..." He hesitated. "At most... two months."
The phone slipped from my numb fingers. It landed silently on the thick rug.
Two months.
Sixty days.
The number echoed in the vast emptiness of my mind. A countdown. A final, unchangeable deadline.
I curled into a ball, pressing my forehead against my knees. The tears came then, hot and silent. Not for the family downstairs, not for the husband who despised me. They were for me. For the life I would never get to live. For the dreams that would die with me.
A faint creak from the hallway outside my door made me freeze.
I held my breath, listening. Silence.
But I wasn't alone. I could feel it—the weight of someone standing just beyond the oak. A presence. Watching. Waiting.
I didn't move. Didn't dare breathe. I pressed my ear to the wood, straining to catch any sound from the other side.
And then I heard it. A soft rustle of fabric. The whisper of silk sliding against itself.
Kallie's dress.
She was out there. Listening. She must have followed me the moment I left the party.
I heard her shift her weight, a faint creak of the floorboard beneath her feet. Her breath hitched—just slightly—as if she had heard something that pleased her. And then, so quiet I almost missed it, a soft, breathy laugh. Smothered too quickly to be innocent.
The sound turned my blood to ice.
Footsteps retreated down the hall. Light. Almost skipping. The whisper of her silver gown faded into the distance.
I stayed pressed against the door, my heart hammering. I couldn't hear the words exchanged downstairs, not clearly—the music and chatter from the party filtered up in a muffled blur. But I caught Keifer's low, rough voice, unmistakable even through the floors: "How is she?"
And then Kallie's answer, floating up like honeyed poison, her tone sweet and loud enough to carry: "I think she just wants to be alone right now. Maybe she's just having a bad day. Let's not bother her, okay?"
Her footsteps moved away from the staircase, drawing him with her, back into the warmth and light of the party. I could picture it perfectly—the way she'd loop her arm through his, tilt her head just so, redirect his attention with a practiced touch. She was good at that. She'd always been good at that.
I let out a shaky breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.
Upstairs, my tears eventually ran dry. I pushed myself up from the floor, my limbs stiff and cold. I walked to the ornate, full-length mirror and stared at my reflection.
The woman looking back at me was a stranger. Her face was pale, her eyes shadowed with a despair so deep it looked like a physical bruise.
But as I stared, something else flickered in their depths. A spark. A tiny, defiant ember in the ashes of my life.
Two months.
If that was all I had left, I would not spend it here. I would not spend it being their punching bag, their disappointment, their convenient excuse.
A new thought, wild and terrifying and liberating, took root in my mind.
I was going to leave. And I was never, ever coming back.
