The secrecy weighed on her everyday for the year, like walking around with a bag pack of stones. That fateful night burned into memory, entrenched into the sulcus of her brain. She pinches the thin inner skin of her dainty wrist, for she must put on her new face. The one she’s worn for the past seven months when she first met her now fiancee.

He’s waiting for her at the restaurant they once exchanged first kisses and quiet whispers of their past selves, or a version of her self she gave. Leaving out the dark unfavorable parts. He gives her a soft warming smile like always, she gives him the new smile, the forced smile. She clenches her teeth and forces her lips back. He doesn’t know what ominous things hide behind her exacted smile.

He closes her front door behind them placing his hand on her lower back guiding her body to the living room likes he done countless times over the past months. But something is different this time, the room is dark and an unnerving sensation is lurking about. He looks for the light switch but the room remains unlit. “I’ll grab some candles” she says disappearing into the next room. He walks over to an old wooden end table and tries the lamp, a few clicks and a dim light hovers over a solid black notebook. He doesn’t want to pry but his curiosity overcomes him and he finds his eyes glued to the pages swaying back and forth reading the words inked on the lines, written in a hurry, smudges from hand marks imprint the pages, sweat drips down the crevasses of his forehead, side burns and neck. He drops the book in utter shock at the confession he’s just read. A Polaroid picture falls out, it’s his fiancé, only she looks different, her hair is blonde in this picture not pitch black like now, her smile is different, warmer, more sincere, her eyes of an innocent doe, she’s embracing a man. His arm around her shoulder, his thick brown hair combed back, his icey blue eyes piercing the picture. And he’s wearing a wedding band, and so Is she.

he stumbles back letting the picture fall out of his palm. As he heads for the door, a loud bang makes the house shake. Panic rises as fear steeps in, run. Run is all he can think of. He runs to the front door as the knocking becomes more aggressive. He looks into the peep hole and lets out a loud gasp. How could this be, familiar eyes are staring back at him, piercing blue eyes.

“who is it?” She says startling him from behind. He’s too stunned to speak at first.

“it’s.. it’s the man from the photo.” He says as his voice trembles.

“photo?” She says confused. She walks up to the peep hole and places her eye into it, her heart pounds as she fixates on the person standing outside the door. For the man she buried is back, and knocking.

Brandi Marie

@Bmarie

Brandi Marie has not written a story.