Chapter 9 — The House That Hurt Too Much to Enter

I watched Boston’s familiar skyline rise through the taxi window, and my stomach twisted like it was trying to crawl out of my body. Home. At least, that’s what it used to be. Now the city looked like a graveyard of every version of myself I’d ever tried to be for Leo. Every streetlight flickering past the glass felt like a flashlight beam exposing something I didn’t want to see. “Almost there,” the driver said. My pulse spiked. There. The house. Our house. Leo’s house. The one I had once painted with soft colors and stupid hope. My fingers tightened around the edge of the seat as if I could physically hold myself together. I couldn’t. Not anymore. The taxi slowed as we turned onto our street—God, even the pavement looked different, heavier somehow, as if it knew the truth I wasn’t ready to tell myself. Every memory screamed at me from the moment the house came into view. The porch where Leo had kissed me after his promotion. The windows I used to watch him return through, searching for the shape of his body like it was my whole world. The front door we had walked through on anniversaries, fights, reconciliations, and everything in between. Now it felt like a trap. “Miss? This the right address?” the driver asked, glancing at me in the mirror. I swallowed hard. My throat felt like it was lined with broken glass. “Yes,” I said. But the word sounded wrong. Too final. Too resigned. Leo wasn’t with me—his flight had landed hours earlier, some excuse about meetings, needing to check on things. Or maybe he just didn’t want to ride home with the wife he’d shattered. The taxi rolled to a stop, and for a moment, I just sat there, staring at the house like it might get up and run at me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. The memories pressed against the windows, crowding in, suffocating. Images flooded my mind—Leo laughing in the living room; Leo sleeping beside me, his hand draped over my waist; Leo whispering promises in the hallway after fights; Leo’s hands on Barbara, the way his mouth had shaped her name in my nightmare, or memory, or whatever the hell that was. I blinked hard, but the ache didn’t leave. When I finally opened the car door, the cold air slapped me, bracing and cruel. My legs were shaky, like the ground wasn’t sure it wanted to hold me. I took two steps toward the house… and froze. From the doorway to the living room to the kitchen where—