Chapter 4: THAT’S NOT YOUR FAULT
Chapter 4
"That is not your fault, Lumi."
"I know." I set the fork down. "I know it’s not. But I keep thinking about it anyway."
She nods but didn’t argue nor try to fix it. She just nods and lets me have the guilt. That is one of the things I love most about her. She knows when to stay quiet.
After breakfast, she stands up and stretches.
"I have some errands to run, I’ll be gone a few hours. The house is yours. Do whatever you need."
We both know she is lying. She has nowhere important to be, she is just giving me space. I love her even more for it.
Once she leaves, the house becomes very quiet. Too quiet.
I shower and change into clean clothes from my bag. When I look in the bathroom mirror, I almost don’t recognise the person staring back. My eyes are swollen. My face looks grey and exhausted. I look like someone who has been broken. Because I have.
I stare at my reflection for a long time.
Seven years, I think. Seven years, and this is all I have left. Two wet bags, a face I barely know, and a marriage that was never truly mine.
I turn off the light and go downstairs.
I don’t plan to go outside, but I end up at the front window looking out. Then I am putting on my shoes. Then I am walking. I have no destination, I just need to move because sitting still feels worse.
The town looks the same as I remember. Same streets. Same houses. A few new shops on the main road. A coffee place that wasn’t here before. But underneath it all, the same bones. The same feeling.
I forgot how small it is.
In London everything is anonymous. You can disappear into the concrete jungle and no one knows your name, your bloodline, or the ghost of your mother’s failed pack.
Here, I am never just Lumi.
I feel it the moment I turn onto the main street.
A woman outside the pharmacy looks up. Recognition flashes across her face, then pity. That small-town look that says, oh, she’s back.
I keep walking.
At the corner shop, an older man holds the door for me. "Lumi, isn’t it? Back for a visit?"
"Something like that," I reply.
Inside, I buy a bottle of water and a chocolate bar I don’t want. The girl at the till gives me the same look. Not unkind. Just aware.
By tomorrow, the whole town will know why I’m back. They remember my mother’s broken bond. They remember how it destroyed her. Now they will add my story to the list.
I walk longer than I planned. The cold air feels good on my face. When I return to Neve’s house, she is already back. She is sitting on the sofa with her laptop. She takes one look at my face and says nothing. She just makes space beside her, I sit down but we don’t talk much.
Sometimes silence is better.
That night, I lie in the guest room staring at the ceiling again. I am almost asleep when my phone lights up.
Callum.
It rings once. Then again.
I turn the phone face down on the nightstand and close my eyes. He calls three more times. A message comes through. I don’t read it. I turn the phone off completely, put it in the drawer, and listen to the rain hitting the window.
Two days later Neve gets the call.
I know from her face before she says anything. She’s standing in the kitchen doorway with her phone in her hand and looks at me with something careful in her eyes.
"It’s the job. Out of state. They need an answer today."
I look at her.
"Lumi..."
"Take it."
"I’m not leaving you right now."
"Neve." I put my mug down. "Take the job. I’m okay."
"You’re not okay."
"I’m going to be okay." I look at her steadily. "And I can’t be the reason you don’t take it. I won’t be."
She looks at me for a long moment. Her eyes go bright.
"I’ll call every day," she says.
"I know you will."
"And I’ll come back if you need..."
"Neve. Take the job."
She presses her lips together then nods once.
Two days later I’m alone in the house.
Neve is gone. The house is quiet in a way that feels different from London quiet. Louder somehow. More present. Like the woods holding its breath before a hunt.
I make coffee, stand at the kitchen window and look out at the street.
I hear the bike before I see it.
Low and rumbling, like a growl building deep in a chest. It pulls up slow outside the house. I watch from the window. A man gets off. Tall. Dark jacket. Tattoos starting at his hands and disappearing up past his collar.
He looks up at the house.
And something about his face stops me completely.
Because I know that face.
Different now. Older, sharper, carrying something it didn’t used to carry. But I know it. I know those eyes.
Ren.
Neve’s little brother.
Except the person standing outside my house is not little. He is not the quiet teenage pup I vaguely remember trailing after me and Neve through long summers.
The person standing there is something else entirely.
He looks up at the window. Our eyes meet.
Anger flashes through me. Hot and sudden. I don’t know why it comes so fast, but it does.
He looks like this is the last place he wants to be. Like Neve forced him to come here and he resents every second of it.
I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone checking on me like I’m a child.
Before he can knock, I walk to the front door and open it.
Ren stands there on the path. His face is blank. He says nothing.
"Neve sent you," I say. It is not a question.
"Yeah."
"I don’t need a babysitter."
He nods once, like he agrees. "Okay."
Then he turns and walks back to his bike without another word.
Wait, did he just leave? Like that?
