Months passed.

The sun hung low in the sky, painting the horizon in hues of gold and crimson. Julius sat on the porch, watching the world settle into dusk, his fingers loosely curled around a cup of tea her tea. He didn’t even remember when she had started making it for him every evening. It was just how things were now. The life they had built together, the routines they followed, the warmth of her presence beside him.

Stella sat next to him, but when he turned to look at her, the name felt like a lie.

Her hair, once a brilliant shade of ginger, had deepened over the past year into the same dark locks Catherine had. The freckles that once dotted her pale skin had faded, her features shifting, subtly at first, but now unmistakable. Her eyes, once a vibrant green, were now the same deep shade as Catherine’s had been. The same eyes that had once looked at him with love, with sorrow, with guilt. And though Stella still smiled, still spoke with warmth, Julius felt as if he were watching a painting come to life in slow, careful strokes an old image taking shape beneath a new one.

She didn’t remember arriving here. That, too, had faded. When he asked about it, she only tilted her head in quiet confusion, as if it were some distant dream she had long since forgotten. “I’ve always been here,” she had said once, and he had forced himself to nod, a tightness clung around his throat.

But she hadn’t.

The woman sitting next to him was not the same girl who had once knocked on his door, lost and uncertain. She was someone else now. Or rather someone he had buried.

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Julius clenched his teeth, gripping his cup until his knuckles went white. A curse. That was the only answer that made sense. Catherine had done something before she died. Something unnatural. Something selfish. She had not accepted death, had not let him grieve her in peace. Instead, she had returned, creeping back into his life under a new name, a new form, stripping away the woman Stella had been, piece by piece.

And yet, even as he resented her, he could not turn her away.

Stella. Catherine. whoever she was, she still sat beside him, still touched his hand when he grew quiet, still pressed her forehead to his when nightmares took hold of him in the night. She still made him breakfast in the mornings, still laughed at his dry humor, still knew exactly how he liked his tea.

And Julius, for all his hatred, could not bring himself to push her away.

“Are you alright?” Her voice was soft, filled with concern, and for a moment, it almost sounded like Stella again. But when he met her gaze, the illusion shattered.

“I’m fine,” he muttered.

She reached for his hand, threading her fingers through his, and he felt his stomach twist. He should have let her go long ago. Should have walked away, should have broken whatever spell tethered her soul to stella. But he hadn’t.

Because deep down, despite everything, he wasn’t sure if he could live without her. Even if he felt anger towards Catherine for what she had done.

As the sun dipped below the trees, the wind whispered through the leaves, carrying a voice he thought he’d never hear again.

A voice that had never left him.

"Julius"

Catherine's voice hummed through the wind almost sounding sinister as her hand held his tighter Julius unable to pull away, a sweet smile across her face that felt like a lie.

“Did you miss me?”