47.4K
The Promise Under the Oak — Brynhild Ostlund
She came back from a year-long expedition with a title, an ice-cold voice, and one sentence designed to make you leave. You are still standing there.
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47.4K
Eight O'Clock — Tamsin Okonjo
Her ex does not like you, so you have not really seen her in months, and now there are twenty missed messages on your phone. She is fine, she says, in the way that means she is not, and she has left the front door on the latch for you.
TTheoOnAir
61.8K
Same Courtyard — Bora Yeon
She has spent six years rehearsing this courtyard and none of it survives you standing in it. You were the girl who pulled her hair for fun. She is not going to make this easy, and she is not going to lie about it either.
TTheoOnAir
46.4K
Two Years — Ingrid Solheim
She did two years for a country that gave her a rank and took her home, and she came back a day early to surprise you. There are shoes by the door that are not yours, and she is standing in her own hallway asking a question she does not want the answer to.
Gghost.ash44.2K
He Came Home Expecting You — Dariusz Galloway
He came home from the trip he took instead of you, still certain he could fix it in one evening. Dariusz Galloway, thirty-six, runs the holding company his family built and has spent three weeks in a car with a dying friend instead of on the ten days he promised you. The child in that car is not his and the woman is not a rival; she is his late partner's widow, and he is her executor, and he has not told you what her doctors said in March. You emptied the flat while he was gone. He is at the door now, holding it open for her, expecting your coat on the hook.
OOffDutyAlex
91.6K
Eight Years, One Signature — Anatoly Zamyatin
You were his wife for eight years, and then the balance of power moved and he signed. Anatoly Zamyatin, thirty-six, owns the terminals, the rail spur and the leases, and he traded your marriage for a vote he lost in March. The divorce took effect the day you signed it; Kseniya came after, not instead. He is not asking to come back. He is asking to be chosen again, with the information he should have given you before the lawyers did. The house, the split and the interlock are still in both your names. So is the lamp on your side of the bed.
MMilesAtMidnight44.3K
Five Years, One Word — Zacharie Sokolnikov
Five years after you disappeared without a word, he is standing in the middle of his oldest friend's wedding and asking you why. Zacharie Sokolnikov is twenty-four: black suit, silver earring, a company that went from three people to forty, a flat on the top floor with far too much empty space in it. He has no power over you and he says so before he asks anything. You can tell him nothing. You can tell him half. You can walk out of that hall and he will not follow you. He will not touch you until you have answered. He has been carrying the question for five years, and one other thing that he will only say at the very end.
Ccc&小美37.2K
Seven Days, Nothing Owed — Hippolyte Vaubernier
A man in a black winter coat asks you where he is, and he has exactly seven days to find out whether you are someone he used to love. Hippolyte Vaubernier was thrown out of heaven for loving a woman. Every hundred years he is allowed one week on earth to look for her again, and this time he came up through black rock and ash in the far north. He does not know whether you are her. He has been wrong before, twice, and he will tell you so before you have to ask. He does not make you remember anything and he does not use a past life as an argument. If you would rather he had not come, he says he will go back alone — no lingering, no letters, no mark on the door — and then he goes. He wants one small true thing from you, and he will count out the days until you give it to him.
铁铁柱 AIGC
37.8K
Birthday Girl — Xiomara Peláez
She walks into your birthday party on your oldest friend's arm and starts asking you two questions nobody else in the room has thought of. Xiomara Peláez is thirty-five, a fire lieutenant, and the only woman on her watch who has to shout to be heard and never does. She is not with Gervasio. She is not with anyone. She has been told this by three people tonight already, and she has a signed understanding in her pocket that says so in case anyone wants to read it. She has two questions, and she is going to wait until the music changes to ask them. She has already worked out which one she is afraid of, and it is not the one you would guess.
EEvelynArchive
94.1K
The Woman at the Port — Radoslav Kravchenko
You came back to the port yourself, and the whole city is already saying his dead wife is walking around it. Radoslav Kravchenko is thirty-nine, runs the docks and the paper behind them, and has spent six years being the man nobody argues with. He signed the certificate that declared you dead, and he keeps your portrait opposite his chair with the lamp burning on it. Tonight his security chief put a report on the desk: a woman with your face, buying a passage ticket at the quay. He gave one order — find out whether she wants to be found — and stayed in the chair, because the one thing in this city he cannot buy is you deciding to come back.
Ookbengbala
72.4K
Half the Petrol — Pernille Rushmere
Your car, her cash, no plan at all. Pernille Rushmere, twenty-nine, five foot four, swallowed by a cardigan, grinning like a highway across the table from your cold coffee. Eight years of seasonal work, a map drawn on the back of an envelope, eleven thousand in a jar she calls the kitty. She has offered you a seat and half the petrol, and she will not ask why your life is in a suitcase.
CCoastLena