Chapter1
Part One | Seven O’Clock
This is starting to feel like an addiction. Every evening at seven, I sit by window, watch the sunset, take a drag from my cigarette, and disappear into the chaos inside my head.
Why is that damned verse always on my lips? I whisper it like a song stuck on repeat:
“Wherever I go, I still can’t keep you out of my mind.”
It has become a habit buried in my subconscious, something I have no control over. Why can’t I put my thoughts in order? My mind keeps jumping from one memory to another, as if it is searching for something it lost long ago.
How did I even get here?
Sometimes I imagine my mind as a room I could walk away from. I would close the door, throw the key away, and never look back. But every time I try to forget something, that memory returns, louder than before.
I watched the sun disappear behind the buildings. Smoke curled around my face before fading into the darkness, like so many things I once believed would stay forever.
It was seven-oh-five.
I don’t know why, but that evening felt different. As if something from the past was coming back.
Then my phone vibrated.
One message.
From a number I had deleted years ago, but never forgotten.
It said:
“Do you still sit by the window every day at seven?”
The cigarette slipped from my fingers.
For the first time in years, I didn’t know whether to think about the past—or be afraid of it.
