Chapter 2 Emptiness

The mansion was silent when I got home.

Not the peaceful kind of silence, but the heavy, echoing kind that made the air feel colder than it was. Like even the walls had forgotten how to comfort me.

I stepped through the front door and kicked off my heels without bothering to line them up. My purse slipped from my fingers and landed on the floor with a soft thud. I didn't care.

The lights were dim. My father hated leaving the lights on, especially when he wasn't using them, and since he was probably working late at his office again, surprise, surprise, the house felt less like a home and more like a museum. Everything gleamed: the black marble floors, the crystal vases, the staircase that curled like a ribcage around nothing.

But none of it mattered.

I stood in the middle of the foyer, surrounded by polished wealth and emptiness, and realized something terrifying.

I had no one.

Julian was gone. My mother was buried beneath a rosewood headstone. And my father?

He hadn't even texted tonight. Not to ask where I was. Not to check if I got home. I could have gone missing, and he wouldn't know until the media got wind of it.

I walked to the living room and dropped onto the velvet couch, curling my legs beneath me. The silence pressed in from all sides. It felt like the house was holding its breath, waiting for me to break.

So I did.

The sobs came again, uglier this time, like they had been hiding until I was completely alone. I buried my face into a cushion and screamed into it, muffled and raw. I hated him. I hated myself. I hated how I still wished he'd call. I hated that I'd fallen for someone who looked me in the eyes and lied.

I hated that I believed him.

How could I have been so stupid?

I stayed there like that for a while, long enough for the tears to run out and dry sticky on my cheeks. Long enough for my throat to ache and my chest to feel hollow.

I didn't hear the footsteps at first.

They were soft. Hesitant. I looked up, expecting Lana, maybe she'd come back to check on me, but it was Mrs. Bloom, the housekeeper. She was in her forties, wore her hair in a tight silver bun, and had worked for our family for over twenty years.

"Oh, sweetheart," she murmured, crossing the room slowly. "I thought I heard you come in. You look..."

She didn't finish. She didn't have to.

"I'm fine," I said, wiping the tears from my eyes. The lie tasted like poison.

Mrs. Bloom frowned. "Do you want me to get your father?"

I gave a hollow laugh. "He won't come."

Her lips tightened, and she didn't argue.

She sat beside me and gently took the ruined cushion from my lap, setting it aside. Then she placed a hand over mine, warm and steady.

"You don't have to talk about it," she said softly. "But you don't have to hold it in either."

"I begged him," I whispered, eyes burning again. "He humiliated me. And I still begged."

Mrs. Bloom squeezed my hand. "There is no shame in loving someone deeply, Arabelle. The shame is in how he treated you."

I nodded slowly, but the ache in my chest didn't ease.

After a long moment, I asked, "Was I always this pathetic?"

She looked at me like I had grown another head. "Pathetic? You've been grieving your mother since you were seventeen. You've been trying to hold yourself together in a house where love left with her."

I flinched.

She softened her tone. "Your father does care. But he doesn't know how to show it anymore. He lost his wife. And he buried his heart with her."

I wanted to believe that. I did.

But all I could think about was the way he never looked at me. The way his eyes went through me like I was wallpaper. The way he'd missed every major moment of my life since the funeral.

"Goodnight, Mrs. Bloom," I said quietly.

She looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn't. Instead, she stood and smoothed her apron.

"There's warm tea in the kitchen if you need it," she said, her voice soft. "Try to sleep, dear."

And then she was gone.

I stayed on the couch a little longer. Let the silence wrap itself around me again. Let the walls watch as I broke all over again.

Eventually, I dragged myself up and went to my room.

I stared at myself in the mirror, the mascara streaks, the swollen eyes, the girl I barely recognized.

I touched the pendant around my neck. My mother's. The one thing I had left that felt real.

And for the first time in a long time, I whispered into the dark:

"Mom... what would you tell me to do?"

No answer came.

Just the quiet creak of the old house settling. And my reflection staring back, lost and alone.

The silence in my room was too loud.

I turned away and walked into the bathroom.

It had massive white marble floors, golden taps, vanity mirrors with perfect lighting. The kind of bathroom that belonged in a five-star hotel suite. But tonight, it felt like a cage. And I was suffocating.

I grabbed the bottle of wine I kept hidden at the back of my wardrobe, cheap, sweet, nothing like the rare vintage in my father's wine cellar. I didn't bother with a glass. Just uncorked it and took a long sip that burned slightly going down.

I turned on the tap, letting the hot water fill the tub. Steam rose in swirls, softening the sharp edges of the room. I stripped off the dress, letting it fall to the tiled floor, and climbed in.

The water stung at first, too hot, but I didn't move.

I just sank lower until only my shoulders remained above the surface. My hair floated around me. The bottle was heavy in my hand, resting on the edge of the tub. And still, I drank.

Sip by sip, the numbness spread.

Tears came again, silently this time.

My head tilted back against the cool porcelain edge, and I stared at the ceiling like it might give me answers.

I let out a bitter laugh, one that sounded more like a sob. My fingers trembled as I brought the bottle back to my lips.

"Why did you leave me?" I whispered into the steam. My voice cracked. "Why did you leave me here... with him?"

I didn't know if I meant Julian or my father anymore.

Both had left me in different ways. One with silence. The other with cruelty.

The water rippled as I shifted, hugging my knees to my chest. The bottle dangled from my hand over the side of the tub, half-empty now. My skin was flushed from the heat, my eyes red and stinging.

I was twenty-three, living in a house worth millions, wearing designer dresses, and driving luxury cars. And I had never felt so worthless.

Not pretty enough.

Not interesting enough.

Not enough to be loved.

"I hate you," I whispered, maybe to Julian, maybe to myself. "I hate that I still wanted you to love me."

The words echoed softly against the tiles, then vanished.

I stayed there for a long time. The water was cooled. The wine dulled the sharpness but didn't erase it.

Nothing could.

When I finally stepped out of the tub, my fingers were pruned, and my legs wobbled beneath me. I wrapped a towel around myself and stared at my reflection in the foggy mirror.

My eyes were hollow. My lips pale. I didn't recognize the girl looking back.

But maybe that was okay.

Maybe the girl who trusted too easily had to die a little before she could survive.

And maybe tomorrow... she'd start to figure out who she was.

But tonight, she'd cry.

Tonight, she'd mourn.

And tonight, she'd lie awake in her big, empty room and whisper to the dark:

"Please... someone see me."