Olivia is 25.
July 2025.
Olivia sat behind the wheel, engine idling, watching the old house settle into dusk. It had a sagging porch, fretwork like spiderwebs, and windows that caught the last light like something was watching back. Her name was on the deed. Her name. Not theirs.
She killed the engine. Crickets were already tuning up in the long grass, and the silence out here had a shape. Dense, green, and waiting. Not like the city, where noise was a kind of armor.
The back of the truck groaned when she opened it. Boxes, marked in Zelda's handwriting, made her stomach twist. She hadn't even noticed. That looping Z. "Books (fragile)," it said. Like Olivia didn't already know which things could cut her.
She got to work. The sun dropped lower. Her arms ached. Tape stuck to her wrist, her shin, her shirt. She moved like a ghost in sweatpants, ferrying pieces of her old life into this creaky new shell.
It was just after sunset when she found the book.
Small, worn, the dust jacket long gone. The spine read Quiet Animal. Inside the cover: Greta Smoot, underlined twice in Zelda's fine black pen. She didn't remember ever seeing Zelda read it, but the corner was dog-eared halfway through. Olivia flipped to that page like she could catch her ghost mid-sentence.
"You can't domesticate a fox and then blame her for the teeth."
Of course.
She pressed the book to her chest. Stupid. She hated herself for feeling anything. Zelda had made her small. Had rewritten her into something "less anxious," which meant less her. And now here she was, clinging to one of her ex's forgotten totems like it still meant something.
She dropped it into a pile marked "Return."
"Not fucking delivering it," she muttered, like saying it out loud would make it real. "She can live without it."
But as she turned away, Olivia wondered if Zelda even remembered the book. Or if leaving it behind was deliberate. One of those little cuts that didn't bleed until later.
She didn't cry. Not yet.
The thing about heartbreak, Olivia had discovered, was that it left these odd little windows cracked open. You could be carrying a box of mugs into a too-quiet kitchen and suddenly--wham--you're thinking about Greta Smoot.
She sat down on the dusty floor with Quiet Animal in her lap, knees pulled up, heart aching in that slow, dull way grief gets when it starts unpacking itself. The book smelled like Zelda's apartment. Old incense. Cheap wine. Damp wool.
Greta had disappeared, hadn't she? Vanished mid-tour, right after that strange podcast interview where she'd said something cryptic about dogs dreaming in human. There were rumors--of course there were. Zelda had always followed the drama. A Reddit thread, a blurry photo. "Greta Smoot Spotted in South Philly With New Girlfriend and Cross-Dresser." Olivia had rolled her eyes at the time. Now, she remembered it too clearly.
"What the Moon Knew." That was the name of Greta's unfinished novel. Zelda had been obsessed. Said it was supposed to be about reincarnation, or regret, or maybe rivers. No one really knew.
Some indie blog had claimed it was a "love story written in grief's handwriting." God. What a line. Olivia wished she didn't remember it.
She leaned her head against the wall. "Wonder if she'll finish it," she said to no one. "Wonder if anyone gives a fuck."
The crickets had stopped.
For a moment, Olivia considered keeping the book. Just holding on to it. Just... until she didn't hurt so much.
But no. That wasn't the rule. The rule was: Zelda gets her things. Even the ones that sting.
She slid Quiet Animal back into the box. She sealed it with the cheap packing tape that screamed when you pulled it. In black Sharpie, she wrote: ZELDA -- RETURN TO SENDER.
Then, just for herself, under her breath: "What do you know, moon?"
The water was too hot, but she didn't turn it down. Olivia stood under the spray with her head bowed, letting it drum against her neck and shoulders until the skin flushed pink. Steam curled around the ancient tile--white with flowered accents, cracked in places like a memory.
She ran her hands over her arms, her ribs, not quite touching. Just a slow inventory of what was still hers.
Her body was lean but not chiseled. Runner's thighs without the medals. Soft belly she used to blame on stress. Slight slope to her breasts, enough to cup, to carry. Her pubic hair was dark. She hadn't shaved since the week before the breakup. A stubborn decision, that. Holding out like it meant something.
She stepped out and toweled off with one of Zelda's old bath sheets, still faintly scented with eucalyptus. Gross, but she hadn't replaced them yet. Another thing on the list.
In the mirror, she studied herself the way she used to study strangers--curious, clinical, a little cruel. Slightly Japanese features. That's what people said. She'd grown up with it: "You've got your mother's eyes."
She did. Sharp, dark, almond-shaped. Olivia could see them clearly.
But the rest?
Her father was supposed to be in there somewhere. Everyone said so. The shape of her jaw, maybe. Her chin when she was angry. A certain stillness.
She couldn't see it. Or maybe she just didn't want to.
He'd walked out before she could remember. All she had was the story. An old photo her aunt insisted looked just like her, but Olivia didn't see it. Maybe it was easier that way.
She exhaled. Fog chased the air from the mirror. Her reflection blurred, then slowly returned.
"I'm here," she said, softly. Just to test it.
She didn't quite believe herself yet.
Morning arrived without fanfare--just a gray wash of light creeping in through mismatched curtains and the groan of wood expanding in the floorboards. Olivia was up early, dressed in leggings and a faded college sweatshirt with a bleach stain across the hem. No bra. No need.
Today was for order. Not healing, not epiphanies--just work.
She unpacked like she was on the clock. Kitchen first: mismatched mugs, half a spice rack, the blender she never used. She stacked dishes, wiped out drawers, threw away a box of herbal teas that smelled like Zelda's morning breath. She found three whisks and zero forks. Classic.
By afternoon, her muscles ached in that dull, middle-back way that said you haven't done this in a while. She switched to bedroom boxes--sheets, a vibrator tangled in a pair of socks, an envelope of old birthday cards she didn't open.
By six, she was sweaty and faintly dust-coated. The microwave had to be coaxed into life with a double-tap on the side. The light inside flickered like a seance.
She ate standing up at the counter. Some kind of pasta thing that claimed to be pesto but tasted like lawn clippings and regret. Ding. Nutrition. Yay.
She stared out the back window while chewing. The yard was mostly wild--tall weeds, one swing dangling from a tree branch like a forgotten child. A red fox darted past the fence line. Gone before she could blink.
She licked the plastic fork clean.
If this was healing, it sure as hell didn't feel poetic.
There was a breeze that night. The boxes didn't rustle, but something did. In the wall, maybe. Or under the floorboards. She told herself it was the house settling. The same lie every new homeowner tells.
The attic stairs groaned like something resentful being woken up.
Olivia balanced a box on her hip, reached for the string dangling from the ceiling, and tugged. The folding ladder creaked down, reluctant. A warm gust of dust and wood rot greeted her like an ex who still had your Netflix login.
The attic smelled of time. Not just dust or mildew, but something more... storied. Like air that had held too many secrets for too long.
