"Words unsaid are ghosts. They linger in the silence between heartbeats, screaming louder than any truth dared to."
The envelope was sealed with wax, the imprint of a star Aiden's favorite symbol. I found it tucked inside his notebook, beneath a sketch of a ring I now knew was sapphire. My hands trembled as I turned it over, his handwriting slashing across the front like a wound: For Amara. When the time is right.
When the time is right.
But time had run out.
I sat on the floor of his closet, knees pulled to my chest, the scent of his cologne clinging to the sweaters still hanging above me. The apartment was silent, the kind of silence that pressed against my eardrums until they ached. Aiden hadn't appeared since he tore the letter in half, since the shadow's scream shook the walls. But I felt him now a cold draft snaking around my ankles, the prickle of static in the air.
"Don't," I whispered, though I wasn't sure if I was talking to him or myself.
I broke the seal.
The letter began with a joke.
Hey, pretty girl. If you're reading this, I finally worked up the nerve. Or died. Let's hope it's the first one.
A sob clawed its way up my throat. I pressed the paper to my chest, as if I could imprint his words onto my skin, stitch them into the hollow where my heart used to be.
I bought a ring today. Sapphire, like your eyes. The guy at the pawnshop said it belonged to some 19th-century duchess who died of a broken heart. Romantic, right? Or cursed. Either way, it's yours.
I know we've been fighting. I know I've been distant. But it's not you it's me. (Cliché, I know. Roll your eyes now.) The truth is, I'm terrified. Not of marriage. Not of you. Of… this. Life. How fragile it is. How one wrong turn, one bad day, and it's all over. I don't want to waste a second of whatever time we have left.
So. Marry me. Not because I'm perfect. Not because we're perfect. But because when I'm with you, the world doesn't feel like it's seconds from collapsing. Because you're my gravity. My chaos. My always.
Say yes, and I'll spend every day proving I deserve you.
Say no, and I'll spend every day trying anyway.
Yours, in every lifetime,
Aiden
The words blurred. I read them again. And again. And again. Until they weren't words anymore they were his voice, his laugh, his hands framing my face as he whispered you're my always.
"You coward," I choked, crumpling the letter. "You absolute coward."
The temperature plummeted. Frost crackled across the closet door, and then he was there, flickering like a corrupted film reel. His scars had spread, swallowing half his face, his left eye a hollow void.
"Amara"
"You wrote this weeks before the accident." My voice shook. "Why didn't you give it to me? Why wait?"
He hovered in the doorway, his form unstable. "I wanted it to be perfect. The moment. The words. Us."
"Perfect?" A hysterical laugh escaped me. "Nothing about us was ever perfect! We fought. We lied. We broke each other!"
"And we put each other back together!" Shadows lashed around him, tendrils of darkness snapping at the air. "Every damn time!"
I stood, the letter clutched in my fist. "You don't get to romanticize this. You don't get to haunt me with what could've been."
"I'm not haunting you," he snarled. "I'm loving you!"
"This isn't love! It's selfishness! You're holding me hostage to your regrets!"
His form surged forward, cold hands gripping my shoulders. "You think I wanted this? To watch you grieve? To see you wasting away in this tomb of us?"
"Then leave!" I shoved him, my hands passing through his chest. "If you love me,
let go!"
He recoiled, his edges fraying. "I can't."
"You can! You're just scared!"
"Of course I'm scared!" The admission exploded from him, raw and ragged. The walls trembled, photos crashing to the floor. "I don't know what's next! I don't know if there's anything next! What if it's just… nothing?"
The anger drained out of me, leaving only grief. "What if it's not?"
He stared at me, his remaining eye wide, almost human.
"What if it's peace?" I whispered. "Or light? Or… or more?"
He shook his head. "I don't know how to let go."
"Then let me teach you."
We ended up on the floor, his head in my lap, my fingers carding through hair that felt like winter mist. The letter lay between us, a bridge and a barricade.
"Read it again," he murmured.
"Why?"
"So I can remember."
I unfolded the crumpled page. My voice broke on the first line, but I kept going. By the time I reached Yours, in every lifetime, he was crying silent, frozen tears that crystallized on his cheeks.
"I meant it," he said. "Every word."
"I know."
He turned his face into my palm, his lips colder than death. "Marry me."
The world stopped.
"What?"
"Marry me." He sat up, his gaze burning. "Here. Now. Let me give you this one last thing."
"Aiden"
"I know it's not real. I know it's not enough. But it's all I have left." His thumb brushed my lower lip, frost blooming in its wake. "Say yes."
The shadows held their breath.
"Yes."
It wasn't a ceremony. It was a collision.
He kissed me like it was the first time and the last because it was. His hands mapped my body with a desperation that bordered on violence, my name a prayer and a curse on his lips. We didn't make it to the bed. The floor was ice and splinters, his touch both agony and ecstasy.
"Look at me," he demanded, his voice layered with whispers. "Remember me."
I did. Even as the cold seared my skin. Even as the shadows closed in, swallowing the moonlight. Even as his body faded beneath mine, leaving only the echo of a vow.
Yours. Yours. Yours.
Afterward, he held me as dawn threatened the edges of the night. His heartbeat was a phantom rhythm against my ear, a memory of a memory.
"It's time," he said softly.
I clutched him tighter. "No."
"Amara." He pried my hands loose, pressing a kiss to each palm. "You have to let me go."
"I can't."
"You can." He smiled, the old Aiden peeking through the cracks. "Because you're my always. And always doesn't end here."
The first ray of sunlight pierced the room.
He dissolved in my arms, his laughter lingering like a benediction.
"The greatest love stories are not those that end in 'happily ever after.' They are those that end in 'I release you' in words that set the ghosts free, even as they shatter the world."