Chapter 16 – The Pills and the Pen
The orange bottle sat on Adrian's desk like an accusation.
He turned it over in his hands, the rattle of pills inside a sound he hated. The label with his name printed in sterile black letters felt like proof of everything he didn't want to admit. Mood stabilizer. Take daily.
He hadn't taken one in four days.
Each morning he would unscrew the cap, shake a tablet into his palm, and then stare at it until guilt hollowed him out. Sometimes he set it back in the bottle. Sometimes he flushed it. Sometimes he let it sit on the desk all day, a silent dare he always failed.
The pills dulled him. Numbed the edges. Took the noise in his head and pressed it flat. But they also stole the colors, left him moving through a gray haze where nothing reached him — not joy, not grief, not even the faint warmth of her letters.
And so he resisted. He told himself he wanted to feel. Even if it hurt. Even if it drowned him.
But now, in the silence of her not-writing, he wasn't sure which was worse: the monster at full volume or the hollow fog of medication.
He twisted the cap open again, poured a single pill into his palm, and stared at it under the lamplight. His hand shook. He hated himself for needing it. He hated the thought of swallowing and becoming weightless, colorless.
The bottle remained open long after midnight. The pill lay untouched beside it, a small white circle of shame.
Meanwhile, across the city, Selene sat at her own desk, her photograph of Maren beside her as always.
Adrian's last letter lay unfolded in front of her, the words now as familiar as her own heartbeat. She had read them again tonight, each line carving deeper.
He died in a plane crash… Since then, silence has been the only way I knew how to live.
For ten days, she had let silence answer him. Ten days of pretending the words didn't matter, of telling herself it was safer to walk away. But the truth was inescapable: she had thought of nothing else.
And the thought that he might be waiting — that he might be sinking in her absence — was unbearable.
Her hand trembled as she pulled out a blank sheet of paper. She forced herself not to crumple it, not to run. Not this time.
The pen touched paper.
Selene's Letter
(handwriting uneven at first, then steadier, with long pauses between sentences — a letter written through conflict and fear)
I'm sorry it took me so long to write back. I need to tell you the truth. When I read your letter, it scared me. Not because of you, but because of the weight you carry. It made me feel small, like maybe I couldn't be strong enough to hold even a piece of it. So I stayed quiet, thinking that was safer. For both of us.
But the silence felt worse. It felt like leaving you standing in the dark alone. And I don't want to be another person who disappears on you.
I can't pretend to understand all of your pain. I can only promise this: if you write, I will listen. I can't fix what happened, but I won't look away. Not anymore.
When she lifted her pen, Selene exhaled so hard it felt like she'd been holding her breath for days.
The letter wasn't perfect. It wasn't enough. But it was hers.
She folded it carefully, slipped it into an envelope, and set it on the counter by her keys. She touched it once with her fingertips, as if sealing her choice.
This time, she would not hide.
Back in his apartment, Adrian turned the lamp off, leaving the pill still untouched on the desk. The room fell into shadow, but for the first time in days, he let himself imagine light: the sound of paper sliding from an envelope, the possibility that her silence might break.
And somewhere in the dark, the monster hissed — but softer now, as if it too was waiting.