She looked at the other photos.

  Aryan and Wanda cooking.

  Aryan and Wanda dancing.

  Aryan and Wanda kissing in the rain.

  Aryan and Wanda laughing in a café.

  Aryan and Wanda huddled under an umbrella.

  Aryan and Wanda arms wrapped around each other on a sunny park bench.

  It was a beautiful life that had been lived without her.

  Her eyes drifted to a framed quote on the wall, hand written. "The quiet is safe. But sometimes, loud food helps."

  "This is..." she whispered, her voice breaking. "This is what he lost."

  She set the photo down and looked at the center of the room.

  There was a small table. On it sat a vase containing a single flower.

  It was a deep blue Cornflower. A Sokovian flower.

  The one from my vision, she realized. The one he gave her.

  She reached out to touch the petals. They were dry, fragile and dead.

  "She is dead," Wanda said to the silence.

  Jealousy coiled in her gut. She was jealous of a corpse. She was jealous of the memories this room held. She was jealous that he had loved this version of her so much that he had built a temple to her memory in the dark corner of his house.

  She turned away from the table.

  In the corner of the room stood a full length mirror. An antique thing with a gilded frame.

  Wanda walked toward it. She wanted to see herself. She wanted to compare the broken woman she was to the radiant girl in the photos.

  She stopped in front of the glass.

  But the reflection was wearing the sun dress from the photo. Her hair was loose and shiny. Her cheeks were rosy. She was smiling…

  It was her.

  She stared at the image.

  "You shouldn't be here," the reflection said. Her voice was Wanda's voice, but lighter. "This is a room of a tomb. He comes in here to mourn. If you stay, you are living in a graveyard."

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  Wanda narrowed her eyes. The red magic at her fingertips flared.

  "Then I'll burn the tomb," Wanda replied, her voice dangerous. "I'll replace every dead thing in here with something of mine. I'll make the air smell like my candles and the kitchen taste like my food until he can't remember what it was like when you were the one standing there."

  The reflection tilted her head, a hint of sorrow bleeding into her eyes. "You're erasing yourself. You're becoming a copy of a dead girl."

  "Good," Wanda snapped. "I didn't like her anyway. The me that is me... she is weak. She is alone. She is broken. I'm not alone anymore."

  "You think you're keeping him safe?" the reflection mocked, stepping closer to the glass from the inside. "You're just trapping him in a loop. You're a parasite, latching onto his grief."

  "I am anchoring him!" Wanda shouted, the windows in the room rattling. "He was drifting until I walked up that driveway. You're just a memory that's starting to fade. I'm the reality that's taking up space. He belongs to the Wanda who can actually touch him. To the Wanda who is here"

  The reflection laughed. "And when he finds out you're just a hollow copy? When he realizes you're just wearing my face?"

  "He won't," Wanda whispered, pressing her hand against the cold glass. "Because by the time he looks close enough, I'll have become so much of his world that he won't be able to tell the difference between my skin and yours."

  "You know what happens to people who try to live someone else's life," the reflection warned, her smile dropping. "You'll lose your mind."

  "My mind was already gone," Wanda hissed. "This is the only way to get it back. I'm taking your joy. I'm taking your place at his table. I'm taking your spot in his head. You can keep the grave. I'm taking the man."

  The reflection tilted her head again, that perfect smile returning. "Does he love you, or does he love the way you look in my clothes? Every time he smiles at you, he's smiling at a ghost. You're just a screen he's projecting his favorite movie onto."

  The words cut deep. They were the echo of her own insecurities. But Wanda didn't back down. She fed on the pain. She turned it into fuel.

  "Let him project," Wanda said, her eyes glowing with a terrifying intensity. "Let him see whatever he needs to see to keep that look in his eyes. I'll be the screen, the movie and the theater. I will become the only reality he has. If he's loving a ghost, then I'll be the most beautiful ghost he's ever seen."

  "You'll never be enough," the reflection whispered. "There will always be a corner of his heart where I am still alive and you are just an intruder."

  Wanda leaned in, her nose almost touching the glass. Her red magic began to crack the surface of the mirror.

  "Then I'll find that corner," she vowed. "And I'll rewrite it. I'll make new memories so thick and so heavy they'll bury yours. You had his past. I have his forever."

  CRACK.

  The mirror fractured. A spiderweb of cracks exploded from where Wanda's hand touched the glass. The image of the happy Wanda shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

  The presence in the room vanished.

  Wanda stood there, breathing hard. The reflection was gone. Now, only she remained…

  She looked around the room. The photos. The flower.

  She walked over to the table with the blue cornflower.

  She reached out and crushed the dry petals in her hand. They turned to dust.

  "Dust," she whispered, letting it fall through her fingers.

  She pulled a fresh lemon from her pocket… one she had taken from the kitchen earlier. She placed it on the table where the flower had been.

  It was bright, vivid and alive.

  "Mine," she whispered.

  She turned and walked out of the room. She closed the black door. She locked it, sealing the tomb once more.

  She walked down the hallway to her room.

  She went to the window and looked out at the driveway.

  She waited.

  She could feel his heartbeat getting closer. He was coming back.

  And when he walked through that door, she would be the only thing that mattered.

  "Come home, Aryan," she whispered, her eyes burning with a possessive love. "I am waiting."