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Chapter One
The brass doorknob was frigid in her hand, the metal bone-chilling as she listened to the lock click into place. The sound echoed off the frosted brick, off her hollow form.
Opening the door, she entered an empty house–the expanse stretching like darkness in space. Moonlight spewed from the oversize bay window, casting rainbow fragments over the entryway, illuminating minute specks of dust that settled on the white tile as if they were made for that very spot.
Homes are supposed to be more than just a house. Not just a structure. Not just four walls begging to be adorned, but a refuge. A single buoy in the middle of an ocean. A sanctuary for buried secrets. A place where the tapestry of life mends its fabric together. Home is the comfort of tip-toeing in and hearing dishes clink in the kitchen as your love’s voice lingers in the air. Home is dancing in the halls, laughter coating the walls.
She knew it would never be home again.
She stood there–her briefcase in her right hand, her keys in her left–frozen in an ocean of ice. She couldn’t think past the stagnant silence. It was too much, too loud–the lack of noise reverberating across the painted sheetrock like an earthquake’s last tremor.
She couldn’t breathe as her eyes locked onto the walls patterned with photos of two people she couldn’t recognize, two people who didn’t exist anymore. The silence that stretched from those distant memories, the facade of the perfect life caught in those photos, stung as tears welled in her dusty hazel eyes.
So, she left.
Normally she was strong enough. She’d ignore the stillness and bury herself so deep in the solace of work that nothing else existed. That usually worked. It always worked. Well, it did until it didn’t. On days like those, days where 31,536,000 seconds of silence equaled one entire year, the stillness sunk into her bones and consumed her entirely. She couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t embrace it. She didn’t know how to be, how to physically exist in its presence. She was a fish without water, a bird who strayed too far over crystal clear water with no land in sight.
Without warning, her briefcase slipped from her weakening grasp. It clattered to the floor but she couldn’t hear anything other than the pin pricking silence screaming in her ears. She turned around–her body feeling as alien to that space as the walls themselves–and made her way to her car; a skeleton with no form, liquid bones inhabiting her skin.
She drove mindlessly, allowing her thoughts to empty like rainwater onto the dashboard before her. Her hands gripped the steering wheel, back straight against the seat as she watched trees and snow-covered corn fields flash past her in lightning streaks. Bands of white, dingy greens and brown clouded her vision like mere storm clouds off in the distance.
Forgotten small towns disappeared in the rear-view mirror, their month-old winter festival banners still hanging above empty streets. The word historical was on almost every weathered town sign she passed, the wooden plaques rumbling in the wind. It seems like every village in upstate New York was historical for some reason, special in ways no one remembers anymore.
As she drove farther and farther away from the place with walls but no love, she realized she didn’t know where she was going; she just knew she couldn’t be there. Not today.
She found herself turning off the main road onto a snow beaten path. The gravel ricocheted off her car, pinging to the heartbeat vibrating within her chest. She crawled into the parking lot of The Tipsy Hatter; a home away from home when she felt like she didn’t have one left. At what point she turned off the car and made her way inside, she didn’t know. Everything seemed to dwindle away in slow motion.
She sat staring out of a chipped wooden-pane window, the sound of drunk laughter and clinking glasses fading into the background. Small snowflakes formed like delicate crystal footprints on the glass outside, just soft enough to be out of sight as the snow scattered like glitter on the landscape beyond it. She pushed it all away. Nothing mattered more than watching those ice crystals dance.
She always chose the same seat, the same window. It was the perfect place to relax in the madness without being in it, to watch people without being watched. It was the only time she didn’t have to use what little bit of energy she had left on her social odometer for small talk.
There were times when someone looked at her–really looked at her, magnifying glass at the ready–and they could tell that beyond that practiced smile, there was a melancholy that took root in the fibers holding her together. If they peered hard enough beyond her professionalism, they’d discover a crack in the very foundation of her being, one that no amount of dissolving stitches could hold together.
“Is this taken?” a voice asked in the distance.
She was pulled back to reality in full force–a sudden smack in the face shattering the bliss of mindlessness. Music blared in the background as if the muffled stereo had turned on at that very moment, begging to drown out the raucous cackles of the men who had one too many beers.
She glanced over at the bartender, Greg, who flashed his charming smile at a group of giggling girls. One hand balanced a tray full of vodka cranberries while the other wiped an already sticky counter.
Even when the world came back into view–the clarity at an optometrist exam after they flip the correct prescription onto the goggles floating in front of your face–it still hadn’t clicked that someone was talking to her.
Julia’s gaze shifted to the woman by her side, her right hand resting on the stool and a glass of white wine in her left. The woman’s captivating green eyes gazed right through her, embracing every aspect of her, imperfections and all. They didn’t scan over her glass of clear liquor, questioning her choice of drink. They didn’t merely graze her face before moving on. No, they looked deep into her soul and emerged on the other side. When was the last time someone looked at her like that?
“The seat,” the woman said, small wrinkles forming on her forehead as the corners of her mouth curved upwards, “are you saving it for someone?”
“Oh! I’m sorry,” Julia stammered, pulling her attention away from the fact that the woman’s eyes glistened like spring raindrops even in the dim lighting. “No, not at all. Please, sit.”
With an effortless grace, the woman pulled out the stool, its movement devoid of any noise at all. She sat her wine down first, carefully not clinking the glass on the sticky lacquer of the counter. Her outfit matched her confident demeanor, an undertone floating through the air that she’d done this before.
She wore fitted gray dress pants tailored to accentuate her subtle curves, tapering slightly at the ankles. Julia looked up just as she slung her perfectly pressed blazer across the stool and perched on it. Her sheer white blouse was neatly tucked into the front of her pants. Shoulder length golden brown curls bounced with each movement as she found her comfort on the worn wooden stool.
She reached for her wine with ruby red nails, leaving fingerprints smeared across the glass after placing it back in its exact place. That simple movement was captivating in a way that Julia couldn’t put to words. Julia forced her gaze down at her tequila. It was only her second drink, but she’d barely taken another sip since Greg topped her off at least an hour ago. Too often the mindlessness out that window consumed her entirely.
“I’ve never been here before,” the woman said, a smile playing on her lips as she leaned in closer. “Have you?”
“Yes.” Julia nodded, rushing to compose herself for human interaction. “I come here occasionally, but definitely not for the food. Their menu only consists of French fries and wings on a good day.”
“Is that so?” She chuckled, and Julia couldn’t think of another sound that would match her so well. “I could go for an order of good wings.”
