Hollow
1262 Words
Georgia didn’t answer.
Her throat felt tight, her mind refusing to form words.
The girl blinked again, glancing over her shoulder like maybe she expected Lucian to appear any second. When he didn’t, she shifted her weight awkwardly and said, “He’s not home right now.”
Georgia’s lips parted, but nothing came out. She just nodded once, stiffly, the movement barely visible.
“Okay,” she managed to whisper. Her voice didn’t sound like hers.
The girl frowned slightly. “Do you… want me to tell him someone came by?”
Georgia shook her head. “No. It’s fine.”
She turned around before the girl could say anything else. Her legs felt heavy, her chest hollow. The night air bit at her skin, but she barely felt it. Her steps were uneven as she walked back to her car.
Behind her, the door clicked shut.
She gripped the car door handle and just stood there for a moment, staring blankly at her reflection in the window. Her face looked pale under the porch light, her eyes wide and glassy.
Lucian’s shirt.
That girl.
That house she’d come to think of as safe.
Her stomach twisted, her throat burning as she finally got into the car. Her hands trembled when she started the engine.
The mansion disappeared behind her as she drove out of the estate.
She didn’t cry. Not yet. She just drove, her jaw tight, her vision blurring a few times before she blinked hard and forced herself to focus on the road.
The city lights grew closer, brighter, but inside the car it felt cold. Her fingers tapped restlessly against the steering wheel. Every sound, the wipers, the hum of the tires, the whisper of wind through the windows, felt too loud.
She didn’t remember most of the drive. Only that when she stopped, she was parked in front of her father’s house again, headlights washing over the gate.
Everything inside her felt numb.
She turned off the engine and sat there for a long moment, staring at nothing. Her phone buzzed in her bag, but she didn’t even look.
It wasn’t him. She knew that.
With a shaky breath, she got out of the car and quietly slipped into the house.
The living room was dark except for the faint glow from the hallway lamp. The smell of her father’s coffee still lingered in the air. She heard soft voices coming from upstairs, her father and Mark talking quietly.
Georgia kicked off her shoes near the staircase, her steps soundless on the polished floor. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want anyone to see her face.
She climbed the stairs slowly, one hand brushing against the wooden railing to keep herself steady. Her chest ached like she’d been running for miles.
When she reached her room, she pushed the door open and shut it quietly behind her. The faint scent of her lavender candle still hung in the air.
She didn’t turn on the light. She didn’t need to. The soft moonlight spilling through the window was enough.
Georgia walked straight to the bed and sat down. Her hands found the edge of the blanket, gripping it tightly. For a moment, she just sat there, her heart pounding so hard she thought it would burst out of her chest.
Then she lay back, staring up at the ceiling, her eyes open and empty.
She didn’t want to think. She told herself not to.
But her mind wouldn’t stop.
Lucian hadn’t come to see her at the hospital. Not even once.
She tried to believe maybe he didn’t know she was there, maybe her father had kept it quiet, especially from the press. He’d always been careful with her privacy.
But now… she didn’t know anymore.
If he had really cared, wouldn’t he have called? Wouldn’t he have tried?
She reached for her phone on the nightstand and unlocked it. The screen glowed in the dark. No new messages. No missed calls from him.
Her thumb hovered over his name in her call log. She wanted to press it. Just to hear his voice.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she dropped the phone beside her and covered her face with both hands.
“Why?” she whispered into the quiet.
Her voice cracked, barely there.
Why did everything seems to be falling apart? Because of who she was now?
Was she just too much trouble?
Her father’s words echoed in her mind... “No matter what, you’re my daughter.”
But even that didn’t stop the ache.
Her sadness twisted, slowly, painfully, into something else.
Anger.
She didn’t even know who she was angry at. Herself? Her father? The truth? Or Lucian, who couldn’t even answer his damn phone?
Her chest rose and fell faster, her breathing uneven.
She sat up abruptly, running a shaky hand through her hair. Her reflection in the mirror across the room looked lost, her eyes red and tired.
She wanted to scream. To throw something. To break the silence that felt like it was swallowing her whole.
But instead, she grabbed a pillow, pressed it to her face, and screamed into it... muffled, raw, broken.
When she dropped the pillow, she was breathing hard, her hair sticking to her forehead.
She sat there for a long time, elbows on her knees, hands tangled in her hair.
Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
She was tired of crying. Tired of feeling small.
The room felt smaller too, walls closing in as every thought in her head spun out of control.
“Get it together,” she whispered to herself. “You’re fine. You’re fine.”
But she wasn’t.
She stood up and walked to the window, pushing the curtains aside. The garden outside was still, bathed in pale light. Somewhere in the distance, she heard an owl call.
Her fingers tightened around the curtain.
“I shouldn’t have gone there,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have.”
The image of that girl wearing Lucian’s shirt flashed again in her mind. That relaxed look on her face. That voice.
Georgia bit her lower lip until she tasted blood.
Maybe Lucian had moved on. Maybe she had been foolish to think she meant something more to him.
Her phone buzzed again on the bed, a message from Mark asking if she was okay.
She stared at it for a while, then typed back:
“Yeah. Just tired. Going to sleep.”
A lie.
She sat on the edge of the bed again, staring at the wall. Her eyes felt heavy, but she couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed them, she saw that door open again. That girl’s face.
Her hands curled into fists.
She whispered into the empty room, voice trembling, “I trusted you.”
The words hung there, quiet, painful.
After a long while, she lay back down and pulled the blanket over herself.
She tried to calm her breathing, tried to convince her heart to stop aching.
But no matter how still she stayed, she could feel something inside her shift, something cold and sharp replacing the warmth that used to fill her when she thought of him.
Maybe love wasn’t meant to last for people like her.
Maybe she wasn’t meant to be favored in love at all.
The moonlight crept across the bed as the hours passed, soft and pale.
Georgia didn’t sleep. She just stared at the ceiling, her heart beating too loud in the quiet, waiting for a call that never came.
- Writer
