In His World

Elena POV

I couldn't sleep and the balcony was right there, just outside my bedroom window where Sophia had jumped two years ago.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her climbing over that railing and letting go, falling thirty floors to the pavement below, and I didn't even know what she looked like beyond that portrait at Richard's house but my brain was filled in the details anyway. It made her look like me because apparently that's what she did look like and that made everything so much worse.

I pushed the covers off and sat up because lying there wasn't working, wasn't helping, and the silence in the apartment was pressing against my ears until I thought I'd go mad from it.

The hallway was dark when I stepped out and I didn't turn on any lights because I didn't want Adrian knowing I was awake. He'd probably just tell me to go back to bed like I was a child who couldn't handle a little insomnia.

I walked slowly and my bare feet were cold on the floor and I realized I didn't actually know where anything was in this place. Adrian had shown me my room and the kitchen and that was it, no tour, no explanation of what was behind all these other doors.

I passed a door and then another bedroom with furniture covered in white sheets and then what looked like an office with papers scattered across a desk. I kept going because I wasn't tired and I had nothing else to do. Exploring was better than lying in bed thinking about a dead identical wife.

The hallway turned and I followed it, running my hand along the wall to guide me, and my fingers hit a doorframe that felt different from the others with heavier wood.

I stopped and looked closer.

There was a small metal plate near the handle with a name engraved on it.

SOPHIA

My heart started beating faster and I don't know why because it was just a door, just a room, but something about seeing her name there made everything feel more real. She'd lived here and slept here. She had walked these same hallways and then she had died.

I reached for the handle and tried to turn it but it was locked.

I pulled harder but it wouldn't budge and of course it wouldn't because Adrian had locked it for a reason, had locked away everything that reminded him of her, and I was standing here in the dark trying to open a dead woman's room like some kind of idiot.

"Don't."

I jumped and spun around so fast I almost fell.

Adrian was right behind me and I hadn't heard him coming, hadn't heard anything, and he was just there in sweatpants and nothing else with his hair messy like he'd been sleeping but his eyes were wide awake and cold.

"I was just looking around," I said and my voice came out too high. "I couldn't sleep and I didn't know this was-"

"Step away from the door." He said 

"Adrian, I wasn't trying to-"

"Step away from the door, Elena."

I moved back and he came closer, so close I could feel the heat coming off his skin, and he reached past me to touch the wood. Not the handle, Just the door itself. His palm pressed flat against it like he was making sure it was still there, still locked and still keeping whatever was inside hidden.

"This room stays locked," he said and his voice was different now, colder than I'd ever heard it. "Forever. Do you understand?" He asked.

"Why?" I asked. "What's in there?"

"That's not your concern." He retorted.

"I live here now so actually it kind of is my concern and-" I tried to make him understand.

"This room has nothing to do with you." He was still touching the door and his hand was shaking slightly and I realized with a shock that he was scared, actually scared. "You don't go near this door. You don't touch it. You don't ask about it. Are we clear?" Adrain emphasized.

"No, we're not clear because you're acting like there's a body in there or something and-"

"Are we clear, Elena?"

His eyes met mine and there was something in them that made my stomach drop, made all my arguments die in my throat, and I nodded.

"Say it," he said.

"We're clear."

"Good." He stepped back but he didn't leave, just stood there blocking the hallway like he thought I might try to run past him and break down the door. "Go to bed."

"I told you I can't sleep."

"Then lie there and pretend until morning."

"I keep seeing the balcony," I said and I hated how small my voice sounded. "I keep thinking about her jumping and I can't-"

"You'll get used to it." He cut me off.

"How can you say that?" The words came out louder than I meant them to. "She died there, your wife died there, and you just act like it's nothing."

"It was two years ago."

"So what? You just forgot about her? Locked up her room and moved on like she never existed?"

"I didn't forget about her," Adrian said and his jaw was tight. "But I'm not going to spend the rest of my life mourning someone who made her own choice."

"She killed herself because you couldn't love her back."

"She killed herself because she signed a contract she didn't fully understand and then changed the terms without telling me." He ran a hand through his hair. "I told her from the beginning what this was. A business arrangement and nothing more. She agreed and then she fell in love anyway and expected me to do the same."

"And when you didn't she jumped off your balcony." I completed it for him.

"Yes."

The word hung in the air between us and I didn't know what to say to that, didn't know how to respond to someone who could talk about his wife's suicide like it was just another failed business deal.

"Go to bed, Elena," he said again. "And stay away from this door."

He walked away and I heard his bedroom door close, just close quietly like he had perfect control over everything including how much noise he made.

I stood there staring at Sophia's door and the engraved nameplate and I thought about her locked inside, or her things locked inside, or her ghost locked inside, and I wondered what Adrian was so afraid of that he had to keep it sealed away like this.

I reached out and touched the metal plate, traced the letters of her name with my finger.

"What happened to you?" I whispered.

No answer.

I went back to my room and got into bed but I didn't sleep, just lay there staring at the ceiling and listening to the city outside and thinking about locked doors and dead wife and a man who are too scared to face their own past.

The clock on my phone said 3:47 AM when I heard it.

Someone is crying.

Soft at first, so soft I thought maybe I was imagining it or maybe it was coming from outside or maybe I was finally losing my mind. But then it got louder and I sat up because that was definitely crying, someone sobbing like their heart was breaking.

I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight and opened my door.

The hallway was dark and the crying was louder out here, clearer, and it was definitely a woman. Not just crying but sobbing, the kind of deep wrenching sobs that came from real pain.

I followed the sound and my heart was pounding because I already knew where it was coming from, already knew what I'd find before I got there.

Sophia's door.

The crying was coming from inside the locked room.

I pressed my ear against the wood and it was right there on the other side, so close, like someone was sitting on the floor just beyond the door crying and crying and crying.

"Hello?" I said.

The crying stopped then complete silence.

Every hair on my body stood up and my hands started shaking because that wasn't normal, wasn't natural, the way it just cut off like that.

"Is someone there?" I asked louder.

Nothing.

I tried the handle even though I knew it was locked and it was, wouldn't turn, wouldn't open, and I pulled harder but it didn't matter because it was sealed tight.

"Sophia?" I whispered.

No answer.

But I'd heard the sound of someone crying and I knew I'd heard it, knew it wasn't pipes or wind or my imagination because that was real crying, present tense, happening right now on the other side of this door.

Someone was in that room or something.

I stepped back and my whole body was shaking now because this wasn't possible, wasn't real, Sophia was dead and dead people didn't cry. Dead people didn't make noise. Dead people stayed buried and they didn't come back.

I should wake Adrian and tell him what I heard but what would I say? That his dead wife was crying in her locked room? He'd think I was insane and maybe I was, maybe grief and stress and everything that had happened in the past few weeks had finally broken something in my brain.

I stood there for a long time just staring at that door and waiting for the crying to start again.

It didn't.

The hallway stayed silent.

Finally I went back to my room and got into bed but I didn't close my eyes, didn't even try to sleep, just lay there staring at the wall and thinking about what I'd heard.

Real crying sounds from inside a locked room where no one should be.