After My Lover Erased Himself to Be My Ghost

The smell of cinnamon and melting brown sugar filled the kitchen. I sat at the marble island of my Malibu home, a new script open in front of me. I wasn’t really reading it. I was just enjoying the quiet.

Briggs placed a ceramic bowl down in front of me. Steam rose from the warm oatmeal.

For months, he had made me avocado toast with poached eggs. It was Evan’s favorite breakfast. Evan, my first love. The man I buried years ago. When I brought Briggs into my life, it was because his face was an uncanny mirror of Evan’s. I wanted a ghost. Briggs played the part perfectly. But a few weeks ago, I offhandedly muttered that I actually craved warm oatmeal. I never asked him to change the menu. But the very next morning, the toast was gone. The oatmeal was there.

It was a small shift. But it meant Briggs was looking at me, not the ghost I wanted him to be.

I looked up from my script. Briggs stood across the counter, wearing a soft, eager smile. He looked like he always did—gentle, compliant, waiting for my approval. I reached across the island to brush a stray curl from his forehead.

My fingers stopped an inch from his skin.

I stared at his face. Right beneath his left eye. The skin there was smooth and faintly pink.

His teardrop mole was gone.

It was the one feature that perfectly matched Evan. The detail that made the illusion complete. I blinked, my hand hovering in the air. The pink patch looked raw, fresh from a laser clinic.

He had burned a piece of his own face off. He did it to deepen the resemblance. He did it to make himself more indispensable to my grief.

The air in the kitchen suddenly felt too thin. My stomach turned to ice. He wasn't just playing a part anymore. He was erasing himself.

I slowly pulled my hand back. I didn't scream. I didn't ask why. The silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. Briggs's smile faltered. His eyes darted to my hand, then back to my eyes. He swallowed hard.

I picked up my spoon, took exactly one bite of the oatmeal, and set the spoon down.

I stood up and walked away.

I moved through the rest of the morning with mechanical efficiency. I stepped into the shower and turned the water scalding hot. I put on my armor—a tailored silk blouse, sharp trousers, impeccable makeup. I sat at my desk and answered emails from my agent. Two Academy Awards sat on the shelf behind me, watching the room. I was Saylor Montgomery. I controlled my world.

Briggs hovered. He paced the hallway outside my office. He leaned against the doorframe, his knuckles white as he gripped the wood. Panic rolled off him in heavy waves. He knew he had made a mistake, but he didn't know how to fix it because I wouldn't give him the words to fight with.

By evening, the silence had choked the life out of the house.

"Get in the car," I told him.

I drove us down the Pacific Coast Highway. The sun was setting, painting the sky in bruised shades of purple and black. Briggs sat in the passenger seat, staring at my profile. His breathing was shallow.

I pulled over at a secluded stretch of beach. The wind was fierce, whipping my hair around my face as I stepped out. The ocean crashed violently against the rocks below. Briggs followed me down to the wet sand. He looked small against the vast, dark water.

"Saylor, please," he finally choked out. His voice was raw. "I thought it was what you wanted. I thought it would make you happy."

I stopped at the water's edge and turned to face him. The faint pink scar under his eye caught the dying light. My chest tightened, but I didn't let it show. I kept my face perfectly still.

"You were never him," I said. My voice was quiet, cutting clean through the sound of the waves. "And now you're not even you."

He flinched like I had struck him. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Tears welled in his eyes, spilling over the smooth, altered skin of his cheek.

I didn't wait for a response. I turned my back on him and walked up the sandy incline. I got into my car, started the engine, and drove away. In the rearview mirror, I watched his silhouette standing alone against the crashing tide until he disappeared into the dark.

The house was empty when I got back. But it still smelled faintly of cinnamon and brown sugar.

I locked the front door. I walked down the hall, went straight into the master bathroom, and sank to the floor. The marble tiles were freezing against my legs. I pressed my back hard against the bathtub, pulling my knees to my chest.

I reached over with my right hand and pressed two fingers hard against the inside of my left wrist. The pulse fluttered there, fast and erratic. It was my tell. The one physical leak in my dam.

I closed my eyes. I gave myself exactly ten minutes. Ten minutes to mourn the boy who learned how to make my oatmeal. Ten minutes to grieve the illusion.

When the time was up, I stood. I washed my face in the sink. I rebuilt the wall, brick by cold brick.

At four in the morning, I picked up my phone.

"Maya," I said when she answered. Her voice was thick with sleep, but she was instantly alert.

"Saylor? What's wrong?"

"Scrub him," I said flatly. "Change the gate codes. Tell security his name is off the list. Clear his things out by noon."

Maya didn't gasp. She didn't ask questions. She was my assistant, my anchor. "Understood," she said quietly. "I'll take care of it."

I was about to hang up when she spoke again. Her voice shifted, losing its professional edge.

"Saylor. Wait."

"What is it?"

"I need to tell you something. I should have told you weeks ago."

I gripped the edge of the bathroom counter. "Tell me."

"When you were napping in your trailer last month on set," Maya said slowly. "You were dreaming. You were talking in your sleep."

"I don't care about my dreams, Maya."

"You were saying his name, Saylor," she pushed back gently. "You were calling for Briggs. Not Evan. You haven't said Evan's name in months."

The silence rushed back into my ears, deafening and bright. I stared at my own reflection in the mirror. My perfect, untouchable face.

I pressed my thumb hard into my left wrist.

"Thank you, Maya," I whispered.

I hung up the phone. I didn't cry. But the truth lodged deep in my chest, sharp and immovable, where I could never reach it.