EPILOGUE:

KESHET

The sea had always been their place—where the world felt quieter, where time stood still for just a few moments. I remember how the golden light from the setting sun stretched across the waves, as if trying to hold the moment just a little longer. Aliza and I sat together on the beach, her fingers gently brushing through my hair. It was a small gesture, familiar, comforting. But this time, something about her touch felt… different. Distant. As though she wasn’t fully there, even though she was right beside me.

I watched her closely, trying to piece together the thoughts she wasn't saying. Aliza had always been good at hiding her true feelings, but tonight, it felt like there was something urgent, something she was holding back—something I couldn't quite grasp.

The wind tugged at her hair, and for a brief moment, she looked out at the horizon, her expression distant. Then, her eyes met mine, soft and fleeting, but I could see the weight there.

She said, “Joy is a tricky thing—it hides where you least expect it.”

I laughed lightly, as I always did when she spoke in riddles, as though it were just one of her whimsical musings. “Is this one of your deep moments?” I teased, trying to ease the tension I felt creeping between us.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

But she didn’t smile back in the way she usually did. Instead, her gaze held mine a moment longer than necessary, and I saw something in her eyes that made me want to ask, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

She turned away then, brushing off the moment with an easy smile. “Maybe.” She said, her voice quieter now, almost as if she’d already moved on to something else, as if she didn’t want me to press further.

I should have asked. I should have probed, pushed for the truth. But I didn’t.

Instead, I let her words linger in the space between us, taking in the quiet around us, the distant crash of the waves, and the chill of the evening air. Her fingers were still weaving through my hair, her touch soft but somehow absent, as though she were lost in a thought she couldn’t share.

“Be careful, Keshet,” she said quietly, almost as if she was speaking to herself. “Sometimes, the truth isn’t what it seems.”

Her warning floated in the air for a long moment, but I brushed it aside. “What do you mean by that?” I asked, but she had already shifted, changing the subject to something else. I remember being annoyed by her evasion, by the way she so easily deflected anything I tried to press her on.

It wasn’t until after Aliza’s death that those words would come back to haunt me, as sharp and unsettling as a dagger in my chest. The phrase about joy—the way she had said it, the way she had looked at me like she was trying to tell me something—only then did I understand.

I never knew then, I never understood how much she was hiding. How much danger she was in.

I never knew that the truth Aliza had been trying to protect me from, the truth she had been too scared to say, had been buried beneath those words. Hidden, just as she had been.

I never knew that the joy she spoke of was a lie. And that it would be the last thing she would ever share with me.