The clock ticked.
Vanessa Cole sat on the couch, knees drawn up, her silk robe slipping off her shoulder, a half-empty wine glass in her hand. Outside, the city buzzed with life—horns, laughter, rain dripping from eaves—but inside her apartment there was only silence.
Except for that damned clock.
The sound clawed at her nerves. Tick. Tick. Tick. She hated it. It reminded her of him—of Michael Rivers, of the silver pocket watch that used to rest on the nightstand. Every night, its steady rhythm filled the darkness as they drifted into sleep. She used to tease him about it.
"You sound like an old man, Michael."
He would smile softly, brushing his thumb over the glass. "Time's all we really own, Vanessa."
Now she was alone with nothing but a ticking she couldn't escape.
---
The Good Years
They had been together four years. Not perfect, but real.
She remembered nights with no money but endless laughter, eating greasy takeout cross-legged on the floor of their cramped apartment. Michael would be buried in notebooks, his pen scratching furiously, muttering half-solved equations. She never understood the words, but she loved watching the light in his eyes when something clicked.
He'd fall asleep with ink stains on his fingers, papers scattered like wings. She'd drape a blanket over him, kiss his forehead, whisper that he was brilliant.
There were long walks under streetlamps, whispers about the future, her head on his shoulder while the world fell away. For all his obsessions, he had been hers.
Until suddenly, he wasn't.
---
The Silence
It started when he went quiet. Calls unanswered. Messages left without reply. Days passing without a word.
Vanessa tried not to panic at first—Michael had always disappeared into his work—but this was different. He was shutting her out completely, building walls she couldn't climb.
The silence hurt more than anger. It made her feel invisible, unworthy of notice. She paced her apartment at night, clutching her phone, waiting for it to light up. It never did.
---
Jason
Then there was Jason.
Michael's oldest friend. The man who had been around for years, always the joker, always the easy charm to Michael's brooding silence. Jason was handsome, quick-witted, the kind of man who made strangers feel like old friends.
But she had always known the truth: Jason lived in Michael's shadow. For all his laughter, envy simmered in him like a disease.
That night, she found Jason outside Michael's apartment. He had been knocking, too, with no answer. His face was tight with worry.
"He's not picking up my calls either," Jason muttered. "I thought maybe he… I don't know. Something's wrong."
Inside, the apartment was cold, lifeless. Papers stacked but untouched. No Michael.
They opened the whiskey Jason had brought. They talked about Michael—his distance, his silence, the way he lost himself in Arthur's shadow.
Jason's bitterness slipped through. "He doesn't even see what he has. Four years, Vanessa. Four years, and he leaves you like this. Chasing some phantom. Wasting your youth."
She wanted to deny it, but the words found cracks in her heart. She had felt invisible. She had felt like she was loving a ghost.
Jason looked at her with eyes that burned. "You're perfect wife material. And he doesn't even notice."
One drink became two. Confessions blurred. A kiss she should have pulled away from. Then another. And then—
---
The Betrayal
The door opened.
Michael stood there, rain dripping from his coat, his eyes sunken but sharp. He looked at them, tangled in each other, and the room froze.
Vanessa braced for rage. For shouting. For the storm she deserved.
Instead, he chuckled.
A hollow, broken laugh.
Then he turned and walked into the rain without a word.
The sound gutted her. Anger would have been easier. Rage would have been something she could fight. But that laugh—emptiness wrapped in mockery—was unbearable.
---
The Void
She thought he'd call. Thought he'd come back to scream, to demand, to fight.
But he never did.
His books were gone. His coat no longer hung by the door. The watch no longer ticked on the nightstand.
The silence was absolute. And silence was louder than any scream.
---
The Discovery
It was later—days, maybe weeks—when she finally heard the truth.
Through whispers, through a friend's hushed voice, the story spilled out: the car accident, the hospital, the brain injury. The doctors saying six months, maybe less.
Vanessa dropped the wine glass in her hand, shards scattering across the floor. Six months. All those unanswered calls, the silence that had cut her to pieces—it wasn't neglect. It was death closing in on him.
And she had betrayed him in the moment he needed her most.
Her stomach turned to stone. Her throat closed. She pressed her forehead against the wall and sobbed until her body shook.
---
The Weight
Now, she sat in her apartment, clutching the silver locket he had given her on her birthday. Their initials still etched into the metal. Tears blurred the photograph inside.
"I thought you'd come back," she whispered. "I thought you'd fight for me. But you gave me silence. And maybe that's all I deserve."
The clock ticked louder, merging with her sobs.
Michael Rivers had been hers once. Now he was gone, swallowed by silence, by knowledge, by a fate she hadn't known. And she was left with nothing but regret.