Blame my Shadow

What You Hide Learns How to Hunt

I didn't follow her because I wanted to.

I followed her because my chest hurt in a way that couldn't be explained by paranoia alone.

Sarah told me she was going to sleep early. She said it gently, like she always does. Kissed my forehead. Pulled the blanket up to my chin as if I were a child again. Then she slipped out of the room with the quiet precision she's mastered—no footsteps, no sound, no trace.

I waited until the house settled back into stillness.

Then I got up and followed the hollow feeling pulling me through the dark.

The hotel isn't far from our place. One of those places that pretends to be respectable with warm yellow lights and potted plants at the entrance, but everyone knows what kind of secrets its walls keep. I watched from across the street as Sarah stopped in front of it, hesitated for barely a second, and then walked inside like she belonged there.

My heart shifted into something cold and mechanical.

I crossed the road.

I stood under the broken streetlight.

I waited.

She didn't go to the front desk.

She didn't look around like someone sneaking.

She walked straight down the hall like she already knew exactly where she was going.

Room 214.

She knocked.

Twice.

The door opened.

And for a moment, my lungs forgot how to breathe.

A man stepped into the doorway.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Same build as mine. Same posture. Same quiet stillness in the way he occupied space, like a shadow that knew exactly where it would fall. I couldn't see his face clearly under the hallway light, but I didn't need to. Something animal in me already recognized him.

He smiled.

Sarah smiled back.

She stepped inside.

The door closed.

I stood there and listened to the sound of my own heart tearing itself apart.

Minutes passed.

Then an hour.

Then two.

Every second carved something raw and permanent into my chest. My thoughts turned violent with images I didn't want but couldn't stop. Her laugh. Her hands. His shadow over her. The same hands that had held my face with care now touching someone else with hunger.

I sank down against the wall and pulled my knees to my chest like I did when I was a child hiding from monsters that turned out to be real.

I told myself I should leave.

I didn't.

I punished myself by staying.

Three hours later, the door finally opened.

Sarah stepped out first.

Her hair was slightly loose. Her cheeks tired. Her expression unreadable.

The man stepped out behind her.

And then—

They hugged.

Not briefly.

Not politely.