Seeds of Doubt

The silence of the house pressed in on Rome, a suffocating blanket woven from Reka's absence. He paced the living room, the worn Persian rug a familiar landscape under his restless feet, each step a question mark in the oppressive quiet. He replayed the last days, the last weeks, sifting through memories like a miner panning for gold, searching for the glint of a sign, a tremor, anything that would explain the chasm that had opened between them. He saw her packing, her movements furtive, her eyes downcast, but he’d dismissed it. Just a trip, he’d thought. A little visit to her sister, a bit of breathing room. He never imagined it would be *this*.

He stopped before the framed photograph on the mantelpiece: seventeen years captured in a single, frozen moment. Reka, her smile a little too bright, her eyes holding a flicker of something unreadable, and him, his arm slung possessively around her shoulders, a smug satisfaction etched on his face. Seventeen years. A lifetime. And she’d just… vanished. Like smoke from a snuffed candle.

The thought of her leaving, of her choosing this emptiness over him, gnawed at him. He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, the stubble a rough testament to his sleepless nights. He’d told himself it was just Reka being Reka, prone to dramatic gestures. But the house was too quiet, too clean. No stray sock, no forgotten book, no faint scent of her lavender perfume. It was as if she’d meticulously erased herself from their shared existence.