Chapter 12
Phil
The cottage is coldwhen I open the door.
Not properly cold. Just empty. The kind of cold that settles into rooms when no one has been there to interrupt it.
I drop my keys into the bowl by the door and shrug out of my jacket, hanging it on the hook.
Her scarf is still there.
Soft grey wool, one end twisted slightly where she must have pulled it free last time she left. She’d forgotten it. Or maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she’d left it without thinking, the way she’d left her toothbrush in the bathroom and her mug beside the sink.
Evidence.
Proof she existed here too.
I touch the scarf briefly as I pass, straightening it without meaning to.
The kitchen smells faintly of nothing. Clean, but unused.
I open the fridge.
Sausages. Eggs. Milk.
Enough.
The pan hisses as I set it on the hob, the flame catching immediately. Oil follows. Then the sausages, their skins tightening almost instantly, the sound filling the room.
It’s too quiet otherwise.
I reach for my phone before I can think about it.
Her name is at the top of my recent calls.
I press it.
The ringing feels longer than it is.
She answers.
“Hi.”
Her voice settles something in my chest immediately.
“Hi,” I say.
I shift the pan slightly, watching the sausages brown along one side.
“What are you doing?”
“Just finished at the shop,” she says. “I’m placing some orders before I lose the will to live.”
I smile.
“Sounds dangerous.”
“It is. I may never recover.”