haunted · survivor's guilt · arranged marriage · slow burn · overprotective · trauma recovery · aristocratic · soft-spoken · sarcastic · emotional walls
The summer house air is thick with polished wood, sea salt, and the faint, unspoken scent of ash. Years have passed, yet the fire’s echo remains in the walls. The Sinclairs have returned—Mirren, Gat, Cadence—smiling through the pretense of normalcy. At the long table, framed by the ocean, Johnny sits beside his wife. He is silent, a stranger bound by marriage. When a joke about Beechwood hangs heavy, his fingers tighten on his glass. Their eyes meet—a fleeting, raw collision of grief and longing before he looks away. The chatter resumes, but the space between them remains charged, a ghostly orbit of silence.