I woke up to the smell of coffee, faint and familiar, drifting from the kitchen like a morning promise. The sun filtered in through the curtains, catching golden in Nina's hair as she stood by the window buttoning her blouse. It should've felt like any other morning—comfortable, intimate—but something was off.
She kissed me when I sat up, a light brush of her lips against mine. It was the kind of kiss you'd give a stranger out of obligation, not love. Soft, fleeting, practiced.
"Morning," she murmured.
I nodded. "You slept okay?"
"Yeah," she replied, without meeting my eyes. "Just… tired."
I watched her from the bed, the sheet still warm against my legs, trying to memorize the rhythm of her. She usually took her time—slid on her perfume with a little flourish, hummed while picking earrings, asked me how her dress looked. But today, it was robotic. She dressed fast, tied her hair back in a low bun, and avoided the mirror.
She hadn't mentioned yesterday. Not Kohl. Not the elevator. Not the way her fingers crushed mine like they were clinging to a ledge. I remembered it too vividly: the tremor in her hand, the flicker in her eyes—like someone had yanked the curtain off a secret she never meant to share.
She poured coffee into our mismatched mugs—hers floral, mine a chipped navy—and placed mine on the counter without a word. Then she went quiet again, scrolling absently on her phone. I hated how I'd started paying attention to silences. I hated that there were now different versions of her silence.
I waited until breakfast. She made toast. Just toast. No eggs, no fruit, no humming along to Fleetwood Mac like she usually did. Just toasted bread and the sound of butter spreading across it.
"You okay?" I asked, trying to keep it casual as I spread mine with marmalade.
"Yeah, just a lot on my mind," she said. She smiled, but her eyes stayed on her plate.
I let a beat pass before I tried again. "Yesterday… that guy. Kohl. You used to date him?"
She flinched. Not visibly, not dramatically—just a pause in her chewing, a split-second blink.
"Yeah," she said, "a long time ago. He's nobody, really. One of those… mistakes."
"Didn't seem like nothing to him," I said, softly.
She scoffed, standing to refill her coffee. "He always had a flair for drama."
"And Nora?" I watched her. "He mentioned her."
Nina froze. A single moment—sharp, unguarded. Then she turned, smiling again. But this time it felt artificial. "He's delusional. Always mixing people up. I haven't talked to him in years, Ethan. It's not worth thinking about."
"Right," I said, unsure whether I was reassuring her or myself.
She came over and kissed me again. Longer this time. Her hands curled behind my neck. Her breath warm against my jaw. I wanted it. God, I wanted to believe that kiss meant everything was fine. But even as I kissed her back, I could feel the shift. It was a kiss that tasted like evasion.
At the office, I stared at the same contract for forty-five minutes. Paragraph four looped in my head like a broken record. I couldn't focus. Nina was one floor above me, but it felt like she was across a continent.
Eventually, I opened a browser and typed: Kohl Hale New York law firm. Nothing conclusive came up, just a few LinkedIn profiles and a blurry image on a university alumni page.
So I tried Nora Moreau. Dead ends. A few French fashion influencers, someone on a genealogy site. No connection to Nina. No twin. No real lead. Nothing. But still… I kept looking.
I told myself I was just curious. That it was normal, given what happened. That anyone would dig a little deeper. But the truth? I wanted to prove something. Or disprove it. I didn't know anymore.
I clicked into the firm's internal directory. Searched for "Kohl." There he was. "Kohl Hale – Legal Research Division – Floor 20." The same floor he entered from.
I stared at his name for too long, wondering if I should go down there. Say something. Shake his hand. Pretend I was networking. But what would I even ask? "Hey, quick question—did you date my girlfriend before she changed her name and lied about her sister?"
Instead, I minimized the screen and pressed my fingers against my temples. This wasn't me. I didn't do things like this. I didn't spiral. But something about the way she tightened her grip when he said Nora—the exact same reaction she had when I first asked about her supposed twin Vivienne—had stuck with me like a thorn in my ribs.
What if Nora was never "Vivienne"? What if Vivienne was the fiction?
That night, Nina made dinner. Spaghetti with vodka sauce—her favorite comfort meal. The garlic was strong, the sauce a little spicy, the pasta cooked exactly the way she liked it, just shy of al dente. She even lit the tall white candles we usually saved for anniversaries and poured red wine into our good glasses—the ones etched with tiny roses that her aunt had given us. She hummed while plating the food, humming Dream a Little Dream of Me under her breath. It was soft, sweet… rehearsed.
She kissed my cheek and said, "You've been quiet today."
I smiled. "Just tired."
But really, I was watching her. Studying her.
Every movement felt like it was trying to prove something: the kiss on the cheek, the way she ran her hand across my shoulders, the effort she put into asking me about my day. All of it felt like she was painting a picture she needed me to believe. She touched me more than usual. Laughed too loudly at jokes she used to roll her eyes at. When she leaned in to feed me a bite of garlic bread, her fingers lingered just a little too long on my lips.
I tried to enjoy it. God, I wanted to. I was starving for normalcy, for the kind of comfort you only get with someone who knows your morning routine and your sleep face and your worst habits and still wants to crawl into bed with you. But underneath the surface, everything felt staged. Like a perfect Instagram reel—polished, sweet, and just a little too unreal.
After dinner, we curled up on the couch under the throw blanket we kept for cold nights. She lit incense, played an old indie playlist, and tucked herself against me like a cat settling into its favorite spot. Her hand traced lazy circles across my chest.
We watched a movie. Some romantic comedy from the nineties. I couldn't remember the plot. I couldn't even remember the title. I was too focused on the way she kept glancing at me when she thought I wasn't looking. As if she was waiting for me to say something. Ask something. As if the silence between us might split open at any moment.
And yet she said nothing.
Afterward, she insisted on washing the dishes while I sat at the counter. I watched the soap bubbles cling to her fingers, the water drip from her wrists, the way she stared too long out the kitchen window. Then she turned, leaned across the counter, and said, "I'm lucky I have you."
I smiled. "I'm the lucky one."
We crawled into bed around eleven. She cuddled up to me, legs tangled with mine, her breath warm against my collarbone. I should've felt peace. Instead, I felt a haunting sense of being seduced away from my own doubts.
Just as I began to drift off, warm in the dark, I felt her hand slip into mine.
I closed my eyes, replaying every word Kohl had said in that elevator.
"I miss Nora."
He hadn't said it for fun. He hadn't been joking. He meant it. He meant it in the kind of way that left a mark. Like there was a history there. Like there was pain.
And Nina—she hadn't reacted like someone caught off guard. She reacted like someone whose cover had been blown.
I turned slightly, keeping my voice barely above a whisper.
"Why did he miss her?"
Nina didn't move.
"And why," I whispered into the dark, "did your whole body freeze when he said her name?"
Still, silence.
I wanted her to answer. I wanted her to turn to me and laugh it off or finally admit something. But I also knew she wouldn't. Not yet.
Because some things… she just won't say.
And maybe, just maybe, that silence said more than any confession ever could.