Chapter Sixty-One
● The Waiting
Three days.
That's what the doctor said when he came that evening—a different doctor, one I hadn't seen before, with kind eyes and a voice that didn't flinch when he looked at me.
"The compound will take approximately seventy-two hours to fully clear your system," he explained, adjusting something on his tablet. "You may experience residual effects—warmth, heightened sensitivity, restlessness. It will pass."
I nodded without really hearing.
The aphrodisiac still hummed beneath my skin, a constant low thrum of heat that I'd learned to ignore. It was easier than I'd expected—the body's demands meant nothing when the soul had already checked out.
Mrs. O'Malley came and went.
She brought food. I ate some of it. She brought water. I drank. She asked if I needed anything, and I said no each time, my voice flat and distant, as if it belonged to someone else.
She looked at me with worried eyes.
She didn't ask about the bathroom door.
She didn't ask about the water.
She just tended to me the way she always did—quietly, gently, as if I were something fragile that might break if handled too roughly.
I appreciated it.
But appreciation wasn't enough to anchor me.
---
Rowan didn't come.
Not that night. Not the next day. Not the next.
I told myself I didn't care.
I told myself it was better this way—easier to plan, easier to breathe, easier to pretend I was fine when no one was watching.
But at night, when the city glittered beyond the windows and the aphrodisiac stirred restlessly in my veins, I caught myself listening for footsteps.
For the door to open.
For him to appear, finally, with something real to say.
He never came.
The silence became its own kind of presence—heavy, expectant, accusatory. It filled the bedroom, pressed against my ears, whispered things I didn't want to hear.
You're alone.
You've always been alone.
He was never going to be different.
---
By the third day, the heat began to fade.
I noticed it in small ways—the way my skin no longer prickled at the slightest breeze, the way my thoughts came clearer, less tangled with unwanted sensation. The aphrodisiac was leaving, taking its false fire with it.
Good.
I didn't want its lies anymore.
I didn't want any lies.
---
That afternoon, Mrs. O'Malley brought more than food.
She brought a letter.
It was simple—cream envelope, no return address, my name written in careful script I didn't recognize. She handed it to me with a slight hesitation, her eyes searching my face for something.
"This came for you, Mrs. Royce. Hand-delivered."
I took it. Turned it over. The seal was plain wax, unmarked.
"Who delivered it?"
"A courier. No name." She paused. "Shall I stay while you read it?"
I almost smiled. She was protecting me, even now. Even when there was nothing left to protect.
"No. Thank you, Mrs. O'Malley."
She nodded slowly and left, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
I sat on the edge of the bed and opened the letter.
---
● The Letter
The handwriting was elegant—old-fashioned, deliberate, the kind of script that took time and care.
Aira,
You don't know me, and I don't know you. But I know your face. I've seen it in the news, in the videos, in the comments that tear you apart while pretending to care.
I'm writing because I've been where you are.
Not the fame. Not the marriage. Not the scandal.
The dark.
The place where the only thing that makes sense is not being here anymore.
I won't pretend to understand your pain. Everyone's darkness is their own. But I know what it feels like to stand on the edge and look down. I know what it feels like to plan. To wait. To tell yourself it's the only answer left.
I almost did it, once.
What stopped me wasn't love, or hope, or some sudden realization that life was worth living. What stopped me was a stranger—someone who saw me on a bridge and sat down beside me. She didn't try to save me. She didn't tell me it would get better. She just sat there, present, witnessing, until the moment passed.
I'm not there to sit beside you. I don't know where you are or what you're facing. But I'm writing this to say: someone sees you. Someone who has been in the dark knows you're there.
You don't have to do anything with this letter. You don't have to respond. You don't have to feel grateful or hopeful or any of the things people tell you to feel. You just have to know that somewhere in this world, there's a person who would sit with you in the dark, asking nothing, expecting nothing, just being there.
If you ever need that—really need it—there's an address at the bottom of this page. It's a safe place. No questions. No judgments. Just a room and a person who will sit with you until the moment passes.
However this finds you, wherever you are, I'm sorry you're hurting.
And I'm glad you're still here.
—R♡A
---
I read it three times.
The first time, I didn't believe it. Some trick, some manipulation, some new weapon in the endless war around me.
The second time, I felt something crack—a small fissure in the wall I'd built around myself.
The third time, I cried.
Not the violent sobs of the bathroom floor. Not the desperate weeping of the garden. Just tears—silent, steady, endless—falling onto the cream paper and blurring the careful script.
Someone saw me.
A stranger, someone who didn't know me, didn't want anything from me, had nothing to gain—saw me.
And wrote.
---
I folded the letter carefully and placed it in the drawer of the nightstand.
Not because I planned to use the address.
Because someone had witnessed my darkness without turning away.
That, more than anything, was a kind of light.
---
That night, I stood at the window for a long time.
The city sprawled below, indifferent and vast, full of strangers living their ordinary lives. Somewhere out there, E existed—the person who had written, who had sat on a bridge once, who had been saved by presence.
I thought about the car accident.
The plan.
The way out I'd been carefully constructing.
And for the first time since the bathroom floor, I let myself wonder:
What if I waited?
Just a little longer.
Just to see.
Not because I believed things would get better. Not because I had hope—I didn't. Hope was a currency I'd spent long ago.
But because a stranger had taken the time to write.
Because someone had sat in the dark and reached out a hand.
Because maybe—just maybe—I owed it to that stranger to sit with my own darkness a little while longer.
I didn't make a decision.
I didn't tear up the plan.
I just stood at the window, watching the city breathe, and let the question exist without an answer.
The aphrodisiac was gone.
The heat had faded.
But something else remained—small, fragile, unnamed.
And for now, that was enough.
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