Apr 5
Dead Letters, a novel by Sergio Calderón, Chapter 1 — When
https://www.patreon.com/posts/dead-letters-by-154837838
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Dead Letters, a novel by Sergio Calderón, Chapter 1 — When
https://www.patreon.com/posts/dead-letters-by-154837838
Chapter one
Little update on how the writing is going!
ASHBEP
Chapter I: Development
| KiY
The sheets beside me are empty. Still warm. The kind of warmth that makes you question if someone was really there at all, or if your body just dreamed it into existence.
The air carries a hush, the way it does after something important has been said. Even if that something was just a question. Or a request. Or a beginning disguised as a risk.
I roll onto my back and stare at the wooden beams above me. There’s a knot in one of them shaped like a closed eye. I always imagined it sleeping. Today, it feels like it’s waiting for me to open mine.
“Leave with me this time.”
His voice is still caught in my ear. I could pretend I don’t remember the exact cadence, the way he softened at the end. But that would be a lie. And I’ve had enough of those.
I slip out of bed. My toes meet the cold floor, and it sends a sharp certainty up my spine. Decision days start like this. With silence. With ritual. With a familiar ache.
I pull on a sweater that smells like lavender and bergamot. Comfort scents. My hair is tied up loosely with a silk scarf—one of the ones Stembie gifted me after our last fight, when she said I needed softness more than solitude. She was right.
In the kitchen, I boil water for tea. Not coffee—not today. I need something ancient, something whispering. Jasmine, with a splash of milk. The color reminds me of moonlight. The warmth steadies my hands.
There’s a notebook on the table. It’s not the one I paint in—it’s the one I write in when I’m trying to decide if my heart is lying to me.
I don’t open it.
Instead, I move to the mirror, the tall one with a crack along the bottom left corner. I watch myself sip tea and pretend I’m someone else. Someone who hasn’t just been asked to leave everything familiar behind.
But the thing is—I’ve left before. I’ve started over. I’ve run and rebuilt and reshaped my world with nothing but a bag and a gut feeling.
Still, this feels different.
I reach for my coat. I don’t know if I’ll wear it today, but touching it grounds me. It’s stitched with the memory of departures.
Outside, the snow’s still falling. Quiet. As if it’s trying to muffle the sound of a choice forming in my bones.
I’ll go see Stembie. She’ll know before I even open my mouth. She’ll probably say something annoyingly true and sip her iced matcha like it’s not freezing outside.
But first—I need to walk.
When I need to decide, I walk.
The air bites. The sky yawns open in every direction. And my body remembers what it feels like to belong to something bigger than a decision.
I don’t bother calling first. Stembie’s the kind of person who keeps the door unlocked if she knows you’re coming. And she always knows.
Her house smells like eucalyptus and burnt toast—her usual attempt at breakfast. She’s tucked on her couch, wrapped in a woven throw, laptop on her knees and one sock on. The other is probably somewhere near the space heater.
“Morning,” she says without looking up. “You look like your head is heavier than your body.”
I drop my coat on the chair and let out a sigh that sounds too much like surrender. “He asked me to leave with him.”
That gets her attention.
Stembie shuts her laptop, all business now. She leans forward like she’s about to offer me tea, but then remembers I always make it myself. That’s our rhythm.
I fill the kettle with practiced ease, her silence thick behind me. She waits until I sit down beside her before speaking.
“Do you want to go?”
“I don’t know.” My answer is too fast. It means I do, but I’m afraid of it. “He’s leaving today.”
She hums, like she’s scrolling through all the right things to say and rejecting each one.
“What did it feel like when he asked?”
I look down at my hands, still warm from the tea. “Like he meant it. And like I’d be stupid to say no.”
“But you didn’t say yes, either.”
I shake my head. “I told him I’d give him an answer this morning.”
Stembie raises an eyebrow. “And you came here instead.”
“I needed to feel normal before I did something reckless.”
She leans back into the couch, tucking her legs underneath her. “Sometimes normal is the most reckless thing. Staying when you should’ve leapt. Or worse—staying quiet.”
I glance toward the window. Her porch wind chimes are still tangled from the last storm. No one ever untangled them. They just kept singing the same crooked song.
“What if it’s just a moment?” I ask. “What if we’re mistaking the past for the present?”
Stembie has been studying me for a long time. “And what if you’re mistaking comfort for clarity?”
Her words slice me open in a way that’s too familiar. She’s always been the mirror I avoid looking at too long.
I sip my tea. It’s gone lukewarm.
Then quietly, I say, “I don’t want to wonder, ten years from now, if this was the moment I let everything go.”
She nods. “Then don’t.”
By the time I get back to the house, the sky has softened. Not quite gray, not quite gold. The kind of morning that looks like a held breath.
His car just got back. He must've gone for groceries. That alone makes something inside me clench and release. I don’t dig for my key. Knowing he left it unlocked for me. He’s in the kitchen, back turned, shirt wrinkled from sleep, or from me. There’s a mug in his hand. The second one’s already on the table, waiting.
He turns when he hears me. He doesn’t smile, but I feel it anyway. That low hum between us again. Like the house knows we never left it.
“You came back,” he says.
I nod, and I hate how tight my throat feels. “Of course I did.”
He sets the mug down, moves toward me like he doesn’t know if he should. So I help him decide. I close the gap. My fingers curl into his sweater.
“I want to go,” I whisper, pressing my forehead to his chest. I feel the exhale more than I hear it. He holds me like he’s been bracing for a different answer. Like he’s still not sure he’s allowed this one. “But I can’t just disappear. Not like that. Ever again.”
His hand moves to my back, grounding me. “Then don’t. We’ll do it your way. Slow. Or fast. Or whatever rhythm you need.”
I lean back to look at him. His eyes are soft now, no longer the storm they were last night. “I need time.”
“I can give you that.”
“You leave today,” I remind him.
“Then I’ll stay a little longer.”
“Mic—”
“I didn’t say forever,” he murmurs. “Just longer. Long enough to know we’re not running this time.”
My breath catches. The mug on the table still steams.We just stay there, suspended in the kitchen light, both of us still dressed in yesterday’s choices.
“I’ll pack a bag,” I say. “I won’t go with you yet. But I’ll be ready.”
He presses a kiss to my temple like it’s a vow. “That’s more than I hoped for.”
We sit across from each other at the table, two mugs between us and not much else. I’m not even sure we drink the coffee—just wrap our hands around the heat and pretend it’s enough.
He watches me over the rim of his cup like he’s trying to memorize something. My mouth, maybe. Or the way I don’t quite meet his eyes when I’m scared.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks, voice low.
I nod, even if the answer’s heavier than that. “I just need to be sure of myself before I follow you again.”
“Again,” he repeats, soft, like he’s trying it on.
My hand brushes the strap of my bag on the chair beside me. It’s mostly empty, but it feels like a promise. A quiet yes. A seed.
He stands first. Pushes his chair back slowly, like he’s giving the moment a chance to keep him here.
I follow. We move through the house like we’re dancing around a goodbye. He grabs his jacket. I grab nothing. I already gave him what mattered—my maybe.
At the door, we pause.
His fingers find my wrist. “You’ll call?”
I nod. “You’ll answer?”
“Always.”
I lean forward and kiss his cheek, just the edge of it, where skin meets stubble. “Be careful.”
“You too, Kiy.”
He doesn’t kiss me again. Doesn’t say more than that. Just walks out the door like he trusts I’ll follow, eventually.
And I will.
Just not today.
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