CHAPTER 4 : THE GHOST BENEATH THE WHITE CLOTH

By sixteen, Firenze had perfected the art of pretending.

Everything was okay—

Not good.

Not terrible either.

Just... survivable.

She laughed when needed, talked when spoken to,

but never enough to form roots.

She kept her distance from warmth—

not out of pride,

but as protection.

Until she came.

The Shadow.

A girl full of glittering chaos and too many friends.

A social butterfly who somehow paused long enough to say:

> "I won’t leave you. I’m your friend.”

And Firenze, against every warning stitched into her skin, believed her.

Shadow had her own world, vast and vibrant.

Firenze was just a quiet corner in it.

But that corner made her feel like maybe—just maybe—

she belonged.

Then came Halloween.

Firenze wandered into the costume chaos,

searching for something that felt like her.

She changed in a quiet room,

a space far from the noise she never learned to love.

She forgot her props,

texted her sister:

> “Bring me that.”

But fate, ever theatrical, had other plans.

Her sister knocked on the wrong door.

And he answered.

He—Ghost.

And Firenze, drawn by the sound, opened her door too.

Their eyes met.

The world blurred.

She shut her door quickly, heart hammering.

Ghost wasn’t like the others.

He didn’t sparkle in daylight or chatter in crowds.

He was… still.

A silence that stared.

Firenze soon learned Ghost and Shadow were friends.

The world was small like that.

Mockingly small.

He wore white.

But Firenze saw through it.

She saw the stains underneath—old shadows dressed up as purity.

And then, one night, the veil between stories thinned.

The candle on her desk flickered despite the sealed window.

Her pencil trembled, untouched.

And on the paper—

Words.

> “You never were alone\, little artist.”

Her blood ran cold.

The sketchbook, once hers, now bore another’s hand.

A script that danced between madness and memory

She turned toward the mirror.

And there—

A boy.

No.

A shadow with a boy’s face.

Smiling like sorrow wearing perfume.

> “You called me\, Firenze\,” he said\,

his voice like velvet soaked in something cruel.

“You wrote your grief in blood. I followed the scent.”

She wanted to run.

She wanted to stay.

> “Who... who are you?” she asked\, voice like glass.

> “I’m the ghost that grew in your silence\,”

he whispered.

“The echo you fed with every unspoken word.

The answer to the letter you never sent.”

Her heart didn't shatter.

It remembered.

> “What do you want from me?”

He leaned in, eyes catching firelight.

> “Everything\,”

he said,

“But we’ll start with your heart.”

They started talking.

Firenze knew—somewhere in the flickering silence between their words—that something was wrong with his past.

But our dumb, precious Firenze…

She was starved for affection.

And the ghost?

He offered it like candy wrapped in smoke.

There was Air too.

Air was soft.

Safe.

Uncomplicated.

Air didn’t burn or bruise—just lingered.

Always there, never leaving a mark.

But Air was also… cringe.

Why?

She didn’t know.

Just something about the way he existed made her shoulders tense.

Then came Shadow.

At first, warm and friendly.

But slowly, like a flame denied oxygen, she began to flicker.

Jealousy crawled into her voice—not loud, but there.

Maybe because Air had been her friend first.

Maybe because Ghost had too.

Shadow started drifting toward others, her smile spread thin across too many faces.

Firenze didn’t understand.

She told herself, “Maybe she just needs space.”

But she never truly left Shadow alone.

Meanwhile, every night, the mirror glowed like a secret kept too long.

Ghost would whisper to Firenze through its cracked glass.

Was it a crush?

Love?

Or just the hallucination of affection, clothed as romance?

What Firenze didn’t know… was that it was never love.

Ghost’s love came with claws.

It was his job to ruin the crown.

He found joy in chaos.

In watching things break,

especially beautiful things.

And so he wrapped his hunger in a ribbon labeled “Love.”

Spoke sweet poison into her soul.

Told her she was special,

just before he pushed her closer to the edge.

But our Firenze—

She didn’t know any better.

She’d never tasted real love,

so even pain felt like honey to her.

Because when you’ve never known warmth,

even the fire that burns you feels like comfort.

---

NOTE FROM THE PAGE NO ONE READS:

Even If It’s Just a Scratch

Even if it’s just a scratch—leave.

Don’t let the small wound romanticize itself into a scar.

Because love isn’t supposed to sting.

Affection isn’t meant to bruise.

And kindness never arrives with conditions.

That scratch?

It festers.

Slowly.

Softly.

So quietly you won’t even notice it’s spreading.

Until your skin aches from the infection.

Until your soul becomes a battlefield.

Until everything you loved about yourself begins to rot beneath the weight of someone else’s damage.

No one changes for us.

Not really.

They only pretend until we’re too broken to remember who we were before them.

So if it hurts—leave.

If it feels wrong—run.

If it dims your light just to keep them warm, burn the bridge and don’t look back.

Because you deserve a love that heals, not one that haunts.

And if you stay, you’ll start to burn too.

And no one—not even the one who hurt you—will come running with water.

They’ll just watch.

And call it your fault.

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***