Ashes And Echoes

Hailey's POV

The big gates of the Norway Mansion slowly opened up. They did not make any noise at all. The Norway Mansion had big gates that were very quiet when they were moved.

The driveway curved just like it always did. It was smooth. It was precise, and it had these lights that were lined up along the way, and they glowed softly in the dark of night. Everything looked the same as it always had. It was perfect. The driveway and the whole scene was untouched.

The moment I got out of the car, it felt really strange. The place I was in—it felt like I did not belong there anymore. The life I was looking at was like I was seeing something that was not mine. Everything about this place, this life, felt foreign to me.

The front doors opened before I even got to them. The staff people bowed a little, said hello, but I did not really hear what they were saying. I just kept walking past the staff people without stopping to talk to them. My high heels were making a noise on the marble floor. This marble floor used to feel like the floor in my home, but now it feels like the floor in a museum.

The front doors and the marble floor and everything else about this place used to feel like home. Now it just feels like a museum.

Two years.

I spent two years cleaning floors that did not belong to me. I made meals for people who did not like me at all. The whole time I was trying to make myself smaller so I could fit into a marriage that was falling apart from the inside. This marriage was already broken when I tried to make it work. The marriage was rotting from the inside. It was not getting any better.

The smell of the mansion is really something. It is like laundry and flowers, and the wood is all shiny. The scent of the mansion hits you all at once with the linen and the faint florals and the polished wood. This smell made my chest feel tight. The scent of the mansion is very strong.

I went upstairs.

My bedroom was the same. The bed was really clean. The curtains were closed just the right amount to let the moon shine on the soft sheets. My vanity table was just like I left it—all the bottles and brushes were in the right place. It felt like the three years did not even happen to my bedroom. My bedroom looked like time had stood still for my bedroom.

I closed the door behind me.

The sound was really loud in that room. The quiet room made the sound seem louder. The sound of it was still echoing in the room.

I went to the bathroom, turned the water on as cold as it could get. No steam came up. This was not a place to relax, not a place to pamper myself. I got under the water. Let the coldness sting my skin.

The water was red when it started coming out.

The color was not really red—it was more brownish. It was like the blood had been watered down. I was watching someone's blood go down the drain. I scrubbed my arms and my shoulders and my neck. I scrubbed harder than I needed to. I guess I was trying to get rid of the memory. I wanted the blood of someone to be completely gone.

The picture of Kingsley on the hospital bed keeps coming to me. I saw Kingsley lying on that hospital bed, It was stuck in my head. Kingsley was really sick. Now the image of Kingsley on the hospital bed is all I can think of.

I am pale, I am still. He was breathing only because a machine was helping him to do so. The machine is what is keeping him alive. His body is not doing it on its own. The machine is doing the work for him.and he is alive because of this machine that is allowing him to breathe.

My fingers curled into fists. 

I whispered under the pounding water. I said, "I did not ask you to, I did not ask you to protect me." The water was pounding down on me. 

The words did not change anything.

When I finally turned the water off, my skin was really sore, my hands were shaking a little as I reached for a towel. I dried myself off fast and went back into the bedroom. I pulled out the silk robe from the wardrobe without thinking about it.

The fabric went over my skin smoothly—it was cool and it felt just right. I put it on carefully. I made sure everything was in place. When I turned to look in the mirror, the woman I saw looked different. The fabric made me look different. I saw a different woman staring back at me.

Not broken.

Sharpened.

My eyes looked darker and clearer. Now there was something in them that was calm. It was also something that could be very bad. My eyes had something in them that was settled, something dangerous.

My phone vibrated.

Once.

Then again.

I did not need to check the screen to know who the person calling me was. The person calling me was someone I knew well. I could tell it was the person calling me by thinking about it.

I went ahead, picked the thing up anyway.

Tyler's name kept showing up on the screen, the phone shaking in my hand. It was really annoying. I did not answer it. The phone just kept on ringing. Tyler's name was still there staring at me. I let it ring some more.

The room was really quiet. It felt like the silence was something you could touch—it was that heavy. 

Finally, I swipe to answer and lift the phone to my ear.

“Yes?” I said calmly.

His voice came through immediately, frantic and strained. 

“Hailey. Thank God, You finally picked up.”

I didn't respond.

“I—I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” he continues quickly, words tumbling over each other.

 “Lillian, she—she was the one who lost control. She pushed things too far. I tried to stop her.”

I let out a short laugh.

It cuts through him like a blade.

“Did you?” I ask lightly. “You must have forgotten to mention that part while you were calling me a delivery bitch in front of a hall full of people.”

He sucks in a breath. “I was angry. Confused. I was tricked, Hailey. She manipulated me. You know how she is.”

I walked toward the window, staring out at the manicured gardens below. Everything looks so calm, so controlled.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You were also tricked into signing divorce papers, insulting me, and trying to make me take the fall for fraud.”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“You never mean what you say,” I interrupted. “That’s the problem.”

His breathing grows uneven. “I still love you.

 You have to believe that we can fix this. Drop the charges and we’ll go back to how things were.”

The audacity almost impresses me.

I laughed again—short, sharp, and utterly humorless.

“How things were?” I repeat. “You mean when I was waking up at dawn to help your mother at the market? When I was funding your sister’s education while you pretended I didn’t exist? When you threw a ten-dollar ring at me and expected gratitude?”

“That ring—”

“Was fake,” I cut in. “Just like you.”

He starts crying then. Actual sobs, muffled and ugly, breaking through the speaker. It would have undone me once.

Now it does nothing.

“You aren’t even worth the dirt on my heels, Tyler,” I say evenly. “Let alone my forgiveness.”

There’s a pause. His breathing stutters.

“Please,” he whispers. “Don’t do this to me.”

I pulled the phone away from my ear and ended the call.

The silence that follows is absolute.

I stood there for a moment, phone still in my hand, waiting for something—relief, anger, sadness.

Nothing came.

There’s just a cold void where love used to live.

I set the phone down and turned away from the window. I should go back to the hospital. Kingsley will still be unconscious, still surrounded by machines, but at least there, the waiting feels… honest.

I reached for my coat.

The door opens behind me.

I spun around sharply.

Brandon stands in the doorway.

He didn’t knock.

His face was pale, his usual composure fractured. His eyes are fixed on the tablet in his hand as if it might explode at any second.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, his movements stiff. He didn't offer a greeting, he didn't even sit.

He just held the tablet out to me.

“Hailey,” he says quietly. “Look at the high-definition CCTV from the banquet.”

I ta it from him, my fingers suddenly cold.

The screen lights up.

The angle is wide, pulled from a camera mounted high above the hall. I recognized the moment instantly—Lillian raising her arm, the bottle glinting under the lights.

Brandon taps the screen, slowing the footage down.

Frame by frame.

My breath catches.

Just before the bottle leaves her hand, someone brushes past her from behind.

A subtle movement, almost invisible.

An elbow nudges hers—quick, precise.

The bottle flies.

Kingsley steps in..

Glass shatters.

My hands tightened around the tablet.

“This wasn’t a jealous outburst,” Brandon says grimly. “It was a setup.”

The room feels suddenly too small.

And whoever orchestrated it knew exactly where to aim.