You Love Him
🕊 Wren
The alarm’s already going when I open my eyes. It isn’t loud; it builds slowly, soft and insistent, like it’s trying not to scare me, and fails anyway. I stare at the ceiling for a few seconds while a thin line of morning light cuts across the dim room beside my bed. I don’t know why the alarm’s ringing. When I reach for my phone, I miss it the first time, my hand clumsy like the rest of me woke before my body did.
The screen flashes back at me.
7:12 AM
MEDS.
EAT.
CHECK NOTES.
I exhale.
“Right,” I whisper.
I don’t remember setting those. I sit up too fast. The room tips sideways for one awful second, then settles again like nothing happened. My stomach turns. I wait. Count to five. When the floor stays where it’s supposed to, I pick up my phone and open the notes app. There’s a list pinned to the top.
Morning: Take meds.
Blue bottle.
Drink water.
Eat something plain.
Read mirror.
Check calendar.
I read it once, then again, just to be sure.
“Okay,” I say to the empty room. “Start here.”
Starting here’s something I understand. I stand slowly, keeping one hand on the nightstand until the dizziness passes. My apartment’s quiet except for the refrigerator hum and faint traffic below, normal, safe sounds I can name. I carry my phone into the bathroom like it’s proof I have a plan. Sticky notes crowd the mirror without covering it completely, yellow, white, and pale purple, some neat, some rushed, some written so hard the ink dents the paper.
Take meds before coffee.
Don’t double-dose. Check pill case first.
Eat even if you aren’t hungry.
Lights low if headache starts.
I lean closer. Some notes are dated yesterday, two days ago, last week, but I don’t remember writing any of them. The handwriting’s mine; that should help, and it doesn’t. A blue pill bottle sits beside a plastic case labeled with the days of the week. Wednesday’s compartment is open and the pills are missing. I check my phone anyway. Wednesday.
“Good,” I say softly. “Good. Already done.”
My voice sounds calm, though my chest doesn’t. I drink the room-temperature water beside the sink and find another note underneath the glass.
Fresh water before bed. You did this for yourself.
That one makes my throat tighten, though I don’t know why. I set the glass down and look back at the mirror. A small pale purple note is tucked between two practical ones. It has no date, bullet point, or instruction, only four words in my handwriting.
You love him.
I stare at it, then read it again.
“That’s not helpful,” I say.
My voice’s too thin now. I scan the notes around it, looking for a name or a hint, anything, and find nothing. Everything else tells me how to survive breakfast, medication, appointments, and headaches. This one tells me I love someone, like that’s a fact I should know. I press two fingers to my temple. A dull pressure waits there, not pain exactly, more like a warning.
“No,” I whisper. “Not now.”
I peel the note from the mirror. The paper curls slightly in my hand, and when I flip it over, the back is blank. Of course it is.
“Who’s him?” I ask.
The bathroom gives me nothing back except my own tired face. Lavender hair hangs loose around my shoulders, my freckles stand out against skin that looks too pale, and my eyes are a little swollen, like I cried recently. Maybe I did. I don’t know, and that’s the worst part, not knowing what my own body’s already been through. I stick the note back where I found it, but my hand isn’t steady and it goes on crooked.
You love him.
I step away from it.
“Calendar,” I say, forcing myself back to the list. “Check calendar.”
I open my phone again. There’s an appointment at ten. Dr. Vale. Follow-up. Bring symptom log. My stomach drops. I don’t want a follow-up. I don’t want a symptom log. I don’t want a life that needs instructions taped to glass. I lock the phone and grip the edge of the sink until the feeling passes.
“Start small,” I tell myself.
The words sound familiar. Maybe I say them a lot. I leave the bathroom and move carefully through an apartment that’s neat in a way that doesn’t feel natural. Labels mark the kitchen drawers, a whiteboard hangs on the fridge, and a basket by the door marked OUTSIDE THINGS holds my keys, wallet, sunglasses, and a tied trash bag. A note is stuck to the door above it.
Take trash out before appointment.
Normal and easy. I can do normal and easy. I pick up the bag, slide my feet into sneakers, and unlock the door. The hallway has soft carpet, beige walls, and ceiling lights bright enough to make me squint. My head gives a small pulse as I pull the door shut and turn toward the elevator. A door opens across the hall, and a man steps out with messy dark hair, a black shirt, tattooed arms, ink climbing the side of his neck, and silver at his lower lip.
Snake bites, I realize. He looks like someone I’d notice, though I don’t remember noticing him. He doesn’t freeze like a neighbor caught off guard; his whole body stills, one hand on the doorframe and his keys hanging from the other. His eyes move carefully over my face, like he’s checking for damage, and the trash bag crinkles in my grip.
“Morning,” I say, because that’s what a normal person says to a neighbor in a hallway.
For a moment, he doesn’t answer. Then he blinks, and something in his expression settles into place, gentle but guarded.
“Morning,” he says.
His voice is low and softer than the tattoos suggest, which feels unfair. I glance toward the elevator, then back at him. He’s still watching me, not exactly staring, more like waiting for me to do something next.
“Sorry,” I say, because the silence is starting to crawl under my skin. “Do we know each other?”
His jaw tightens only a little, but I see it.
“We’ve met,” he says.
That’s not a good answer. My hand tightens around the trash bag. “Recently?” He looks at me for one long second.
“Yes.”
I hate that pause. I hate the way he says yes like it costs him something.
“Okay. I’m sorry, I… I have some memory issues, so if I forgot a normal neighbor introduction, that’s on me.”
“It’s not on you,” he says.
The pressure behind my eyes sharpens.
“Meaning?”
“It means you don’t have to apologize.”
That’s a better answer, but it still doesn’t feel like the whole one. I shift back half a step. He notices immediately, his shoulders lowering a little as if he’s trying to make himself less threatening.
“I’m Noah,” he says. “Noah Hayes. I live across the hall.”
Noah. The name doesn’t land in my head; it does something worse, pulling somewhere small and painful under my ribs. I look at his door, then mine, then the narrow stretch of hallway between us. Across the hall. He isn’t a stranger on the street, someone I can walk away from and never see again. He’s right there.
“Wren,” I say automatically.
His eyes soften.
“Yeah.”
My pulse jumps.
“You… know.”
“Yes.”
“Because I told you?”
Again, that careful answer. Again, that feeling that I’m standing in the middle of a conversation that started without me. I glance down at his hands. No movement. No reaching. No crowding. He’s giving me space, and that should make me feel safer. It does, which bothers me.
“I should take this out,” I say, lifting the trash bag slightly.
“Okay.”
He still doesn’t push or explain. I walk past him toward the trash chute at the end of the hall, every step too loud. I can feel him behind me, but he doesn’t follow. When I reach the chute, I shove the bag in too quickly and the metal door clangs hard enough to make me flinch.
“Damn it,” I whisper.
The headache pulses again. I press my fingers to my temple and breathe through it. One. Two. Three. When I turn back, Noah’s still by his door, holding his keys so tightly his knuckles have gone pale. Something about that tightens my throat. I walk back slowly. I should go inside, lock the door, read the notes, and figure out the doctor thing. Instead, I stop in front of my apartment and look at him.
“You’re not surprised,” I say.
He pauses again.
“By what?”
“That I don’t remember meeting you.”
His gaze drops for half a second before returning to mine.
“No,” he says.
The hallway feels smaller.
“Why not?”
He breathes in like he’s choosing between bad answers.
“Because this has happened before.”
The words don’t land loudly or dramatically; they just feel wrong. My fingers go cold around my keys.
“What has?”
He doesn’t answer fast enough. That silence does more damage than the sentence. I take a step back until my shoulder brushes my door.
“Noah,” I say, and his name feels strange in my mouth. “What has happened before?”
His face changes when I say his name. Not much. Enough.
“You’ve forgotten me before,” he says quietly.
The hallway goes too still. I hear the refrigerator humming inside my apartment through the door. I hear my own breathing. I hear those three words from the mirror without seeing them.
You love him.
My stomach turns. I look at Noah: tattooed arms, soft voice, careful distance, and a face that looks like it already knows how this ends.
“No,” I say.
It comes out too fast. He doesn’t argue. That scares me more. I fumble for the doorknob behind me.
“I need to go.”
“Okay.”
There it is again, that quiet acceptance, like he’s practiced letting me leave. I unlock my door with shaking fingers. Before I step inside, he says, “Wren.” I stop even though I don’t want to. His voice is careful now, too careful.
“You might’ve written yourself something about me.”
My hand slips on the doorknob. I don’t turn around because I don’t have to. The note burns in my mind.
You love him.
“I... I don’t know what you mean.”
It’s a thin, useless lie, and Noah doesn’t call me on it. He just says, softer, “Okay.” I step into my apartment and shut the door, then stand with my back against it, one hand over my mouth, breathing too fast. Across the room, the bathroom mirror waits, covered in instructions and proof that I’ve been trying to save myself. Right in the middle of all that survival is one impossible note.
You love him.
Intriguing. 🤔