Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
My wife was stubborn.
That was fine.
I knew how to deal with a stubborn, scorned woman.
I watched her disappear around the next aisle.
A slow smile pulled at my mouth—challenge accepted.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SERAFINA
THE PAST
The living room smelled of coffee and banana bread.
Our textbooks lay scattered across the table in organized chaos that only two people who had been studying for six hours straight could produce. Pens and highlighters were uncapped and abandoned, handwritten sticky notes were plastered on most surfaces that we could reach, and the remains of a shared bag of sweet popcorn lay between Elyssa and me.
The silence between us had been punctuated only by the scratch of pens and the occasional frustrated sigh.
I pressed my thumb against the bridge of my nose, trying to massage away the headache that had been building behind my eyes for the past hour. The words in my Art Historical Theories and Methodologies textbook had begun to blur into an indecipherable smear of black ink.
Across from me, Elyssa closed her notebook with a decisive snap and stretched her arms above her head, her spine arching like a cat’s. She let out a long, exhausted sigh.
“I need a break,” she announced, her eyes fluttering closed for a second before she forced them open again. “My brain’s gone soft. I’ve read the same paragraph four times, and I still couldn’t tell you what it says. I need a shower before I start hallucinating Medieval Byzantine structures on the ceiling.”
I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost nine in the evening. We had been at this since two. Yes, a break sounded reasonable.
“Can I borrow your notes for the Medieval Byzantine Art and Architecture section?” I asked, gesturing toward her opened laptop. “I think I missed some of the key points during the lecture last week.”
“Yeah, of course.” Elyssa stood, rolling her shoulders. “The folder is called ‘ART HIS Notes Spring Semester,’ and it will be under the document labeled ‘Art History Midterm—Don’t fail Elyssa.’ You can just email it to yourself.”
I almost smiled. “Charming title.”
“I’m a realist.” She padded toward the hallway, already pulling her hair tie loose. Her blonde hair fell in waves around her shoulders, slightly flattened from being up all day. Her hair was longer now than the short bob she had when we first met. “I’ll be out in twenty,” she called over her shoulder before disappearing into the bathroom.
The door clicked shut, and a moment later, I heard the familiar groan of the pipes as the shower turned on.
I set my own notebook aside and reached for Elyssa’s laptop on the armchair where she’d left it. The desktop was as cluttered as her closet—folders scattered across the screen with names that made no sense to anyone but her: “Random Stuff,” “Important Probably,” and “Don’t Open This One.”
I smiled despite myself and navigated to her Documents folder, searching for the notes. I found them quickly enough, labeled exactly as she’d said. But as I prepared to attach it to an email, my gaze drifted to the opened tab beside the one I was on, a Google Doc titled Manuscript.
My cursor hovered over it.
I shouldn’t. This was Elyssa’s private work, whatever it was. I had no right to spy on her.
But curiosity, that treacherous and persistent thing, nudged my hand forward.
I clicked it.
The first thing I noticed when I opened the document was the word count on the bottom left. Over 70,000 words long. The first page read: Untitled by Sera Thorn. A pen name, I was sure. I scrolled past the copyright page and the dedication that said: For the ones who carry their ghosts in the dark and began to read the first chapter.
Elyssa wrote the way she spoke, with a directness that cut straight to the bone, but layered beneath it was a vulnerability so raw it made my chest ache.
I read another chapter. Then another.
Each one was better than the last.
By the time I heard the shower turn off, I had read five chapters and was so thoroughly absorbed that I was startled when the bathroom door opened.
Elyssa emerged wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping onto her shoulders, a second smaller towel draped around her neck. She padded into the living room barefoot, still flushed from the heat of the shower, and reached for the glass of water she’d left on the kitchen counter.
I clicked away from the opened tab but didn’t move from where I sat, the laptop still open on my knees.
“Did you find the notes?” she asked, taking a long drink.
I set the laptop on the couch beside me and turned to face her fully. My heart was beating faster than it should have been, and I wasn’t entirely sure why, whether it was the thrill of what I’d discovered or the fear of admitting I’d trespassed.