Chapter 115: The forgotten letters
It was just going to be spring cleaning. At least, that was what I set out to do.
Caspian had offered, but I'd chased him off. I needed the quiet. The distraction. Something to drown out the echo of that last dream, Nathaniel's cold eyes fixed on me from the bottom of our bed. The way I'd woken up shaking, that smudged handprint on the window still etched in my mind.
So I concealed myself in the storage room, where boxes towered like forgotten monuments. They smelled of dust and time, cardboard corners frayed from age. I wished to dig through the ones I had not touched in years—the ones from my apartment before Caspian, from my life before everything changed.
And that's where I discovered it.
The manila envelope, wedged between dusty old sketchbooks and dry pens, stopped me short. My name was on the outside. Not some scrawl—but his. Nathaniel's. I knew that handwriting as I knew the rhythm of my own breathing: jagged loops, slashing lines, ink impressed too hard like the words were meant to leave a gash on the page.
I dropped down cross-legged onto the wood floor, heart already failing.
There were at least six letters inside, folded with unsettling precision. I didn't want to read them. Didn't want to hear his voice again in my head. But I couldn't help myself.
The first was oddly soft.
"You're just scared, Lily. You always think too much. That's why you left. But you'll realize it was a mistake. You'll come back. You always do."
It was like a trap wrapped in silk.
The next one bled with bitterness.
"Caspian doesn't know you like I do. He doesn't know what you need. You're playing pretend with him. You'll wake up eventually."
By the fourth, the tone was venomous.
"You made me this way. I gave you everything. And you threw me away like I was nothing."
I stood there for a moment before opening the last one.
My fingers shook. My chest constricted, as though the actual piece of paper in my fingers was heavy. Its presence.
"If I cannot have you, nobody will."
I dropped it like a hot object in my palms.
There it was—not masks anymore, not emotional games. Just raw menace of a man who equated love with possession. Who thought my departure was treason and that it deserved punishment.
Footsteps approached me from behind, silent but rapid.
"Lily?" Caspian's voice interrupted the quiet, laced with concern. "What is it?"
I couldn't manage to speak. I stared at the last letter as if it would leap to life and slither away from the floor.
He covered the ground to me in two paces. His gaze descended on the pages, and his jaw set. He took up the final note, reading it through once, and then a second time. I could see the fire ascending behind his eyes.
"When were they written?"
"After I left him," I whispered. "I guess I never tossed them away.".
Caspian breathed as though he was calming a storm in his chest. "These are not letters, Lily. These are red flags. Warnings."
"I know."
I looked up at him then, and something in my chest creaked open.
“I should’ve seen it sooner. I should’ve walked away before it got this far. I keep wondering if maybe I did something to encourage this—if I let him think he could still have a place in my life.”
"No." Caspian knelt at my feet, leveling our eyes. His voice softened, but his gaze never wavered. "You didn't do this. You didn't create him. He created his own choices. This obsession? That's his fault."
He stroked a wayward lock of hair from my face, his fingers gentle against the building storm inside me. "You don't have to carry his shame. Or his craziness."
I didn't realize how close we were until I could sense the warmth of his breath on my lips. His hand was at the bend of my jaw, keeping me in place.
"I hate that he still has this hold on you," Caspian whispered.
"I hate that too," I whispered back.
The kiss that followed wasn't desperate or wild—it was a slow letting go. A promise in silence. I melted into it, hoping to believe love like this could conquer fear. That maybe, maybe I could still cling to something beautiful amidst all this darkness closing in.
The ring of Caspian's phone broke the moment.
He reluctantly pulled back, swiping to answer. "Yeah. Talk to me."
I stood, arms folded across my chest as I tried to shake the ghosts still clinging to my skin.
Caspian's expression darkened as he listened. His stance shifted. Tense. Alert.
He hung up the call and turned to me, burning eyes.
"The investigator found out something," he said to me. "Nathaniel's got a fake ID. He's been living with an alias for at least four months. A cabin rental in Tyler Grange's name. No electronic paper trail. No cards. Just cash and silences."
My blood ran cold. "Where?"
"Less than forty miles from us."
I didn't even have time to respond before Caspian's phone beeped again. A text from our security company.
He read it. Stunned.
A neighbor saw someone lurking outside the villa," he told me. "Two hours ago. Told him he matched Nathaniel's description. Just stood there in the woods for nearly fifteen minutes before disappearing."
"Did they call the police?"
"They called security. By the time anyone got there, he'd disappeared."
I walked over to the window. The woods beyond our land loomed above us like a wall of secrets. Nothing was moving—but I didn't believe that anymore.
He's not hiding any longer," I said.
"No," Caspian replied. "He wants us to know he's here."
We stood there, shoulder to shoulder, and watched the trees sway in the twilight. His hand was around mine. Not to comfort—but as an anchor.
"Then let him come," I said, my voice low. "Because I'm finished being afraid of him.".