The Things She Forgot to Burn

Verlaín-

There’s something unholy about morning silence with her. It doesn’t feel like rest. It feels like a held breath. Like we both woke before the sun, but pretended not to. As if sleep would somehow stitch shut what the night unravelled.

I watched Léa from the doorway, her sweater slipping off one shoulder, mug half-empty, eyes fixed on the window like it might open a door back to who she was. She didn’t know I was watching her like that... like a ghost studies the living.

She turned.

“Were you going to say something?” she asked.

I walked toward her.

“I was trying to remember how it felt,” I said.

She arched a brow.

“What?”

“How it felt to kiss you when I still thought I deserved to.”

Her expression flickered. Just a blink.

Then she walked toward me, slowly.

“You never stopped deserving me, Verlaín. You just… stopped believing you did.”

And she kissed me. This time, she reached for me first.

And I fell into it like I always do..... like a sinner who thinks confession comes after the sin, not before.

But something was off. Her mouth trembled. She was hungry, yes..... but it wasn’t desire. It was grief.

She whispered, “Take it from me.”

I didn’t ask what it was. I didn’t need to. She pulled me down to the rug, warm light bleeding through the curtains, and for the first time in what felt like lifetimes....we were bare, without metaphors, without any war. Just touch. And permission. We didn’t speak again for what felt like hours.

After, her breath slowed. I traced her shoulder blades with the back of my hand, memorizing every freckle like scripture. She was almost asleep when she said it.

“Do you remember the journal you gave me?”

I stiffened. Of course I remembered it. A gift. Something stupid I’d written my name inside. Léa kept many things. But she never kept that.

“I burned it,” she said.

I blinked.

“What?”

“I had to. There was blood on it.”

I sat up slowly.

“What do you mean, there was blood—”

Her eyes met mine.

“Not mine,” she said. Calm. Almost distant.

She whispered, “I think someone followed me that night. Before I came back to you. And… something happened. I blacked out. There was a man. And when I woke up, there was blood. On me. On the pages. On the street.”

My mouth went dry. She kept talking. As if the only way to keep from breaking apart was to tell it like fiction.

“I left the city that morning. Got on a train. Didn’t tell anyone. I thought..... if I didn’t remember it, it couldn’t be real.”

Silence.

“I came back to you because I don’t trust myself anymore.”

I stared at her. Not because I didn’t believe her...... but because I did. She fell asleep beside me, curled up like nothing had ever been said. But I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t.

Because I remembered something I wasn’t supposed to remember..... something from before Léa ever came into my life. A news report. Years ago. A body found in the city. Unidentified. No weapon. Just a smear of writing on the pavement in red:

"I am the bird. The cage found me."

And I had thought it was some sad poetry. Until now.

Until Léa whispered it in her sleep.

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