Anna didn't notice when he first started coming back.
Not at first.
Grief is a strange thing. It warps time, dulls sound, stretches days into years and months into moments. Sometimes it buries memories so deep they feel like dreams. Other times, dreams wake you with the weight of something real.
Mark had been dead for ninety-seven days when Anna found his mug in the sink. His favorite one? The one with the chipped handle and faded navy glaze. She stared at it for a long time. She hadn't made tea. She hadn't even touched the cupboard that morning.
She rinsed it slowly and set it on the counter, heart fluttering with something that wasn't quite fear. Something closer to shame. She was still forgetting things. Slipping. Everyone said it was normal. Her sister. Her therapist. The articles she read at 2:00 a.m. with blurred vision and clenched teeth.
Still, she remembered putting all his things in boxes. Taping them shut. Carrying them down to the basement herself.
And yet, his sweater was on the back of the couch the next day.
The radio turned itself on a week later. She was brushing her teeth when the crackle of static and distant jazz drifted into the bathroom. Her chest seized.
Mark loved that station. He used to hum along with it while making dinner, fingers drumming on the stove.
She stepped into the kitchen, trembling.
The dial was turned to 87.1. Just like he used to set it. She hadn't touched it in months.
The counselor told her to be patient with her brain."Sometimes grief… lingers," she said.Anna nodded. But her heart beat like a warning drum.
The house felt different now.
It didn't creak anymore. It breathed. The kind of quiet that feels aware. The kind of silence that listens back.
Three nights later, she woke up to the sound of breathing. Not hers. Not the dog's, he'd died years ago.
This was something else. Deep, steady, just inches from her face in the dark.
She didn't open her eyes.She didn't have to.
She knew exactly who it was.
"I miss you," she whispered, voice raw.Nothing replied.But the breathing stopped.
And something gently brushed her hair back behind her ear.
From then on, the house began to settle around him again.
She stopped turning on the news. Mark always hated noise in the morning.
She opened the curtains just how he liked them, half drawn, a strip of light across the floor like a stage. She cooked his favorites. Set two plates. Ate in silence.
The air felt warmer in the living room, colder in the hall. Sometimes she caught the faint scent of his cologne as she passed the linen closet. It made her dizzy. Lightheaded. Like she was floating between now and then.
She told herself it was memory. A trick. Her brain keeping him alive out of habit.
But then came the mirror.
She saw him for the first time on a Wednesday.
The hallway mirror caught her eye as she walked past, like it always did, but this time, there was more than her reflection. A shape behind her. A face.
Mark.
Not fully. Not clearly. Just a flicker. A suggestion.
He didn't move. But he looked at her. Not with joy. Not even sorrow.
He looked… tired.
Just like her.
The next day, she stood in front of the mirror for hours. Waiting. Hoping.
Nothing.
But that night, as she reached to turn off the light, she heard her name.
Soft. Gentle. Right behind her.
She didn't scream.
She just turned around. Slowly.
There was no one there.
But the light switch was already off.
She didn't leave the house after that.
Didn't answer calls. Didn't open mail. When her sister came to visit, Anna didn't answer the door. She just stood behind it, listening to the voice on the other side turn from concern to confusion to quiet. Eventually, the footsteps retreated.
She wasn't alone anymore.
Mark was with her.
She felt him in the bed beside her at night. Heard the soft creak of the floorboards where he used to stand. Sometimes she caught his scent on her pillow. Sometimes she saw his reflection even when she wasn't looking into glass.
He never spoke again.
But he was always there.
The months blurred. Time bent. The house changed. Grew quiet in a different way, like a mausoleum that had accepted its purpose.
And Anna, she grew quieter too.
One year after her disappearance, the landlord entered the unit with a police escort. The apartment was spotless. No sign of struggle. No forced entry. Nothing taken. Nothing added. No Anna.
But the table was set for two.
And on the mirror in the hallway, faint and smudged, were the words:
I stayed.
Some nights, if you walk past that building just after sunset, the window on the second floor flicks its light on.
Sometimes, you'll catch the scent of fading cologne.
And if you look into the mirror in the hallway,
Don't stay too long.
Or you'll never leave too.