3:20

The Christmas tree should have come down days ago.

Anna knew this in the same distant way she knew the clock had stopped or that the house smelt faintly wrong. These were facts without urgency. The kind of truths that didn’t ask to be acted upon.

The tree stood crooked in the corner of the sitting room, its needles shedding quietly onto the carpet. Several baubles had rolled beneath the sofa and lodged there, reflecting nothing. One strand of lights blinked without pattern — on, off, pause — as though attempting communication and failing.

She stood in the doorway, arms folded tight, watching it.

Waiting had become a habit.

The house understood this. It had learned her stillness and adjusted itself accordingly. Pipes creaked more often now, wood settling in slow, deliberate sounds, as if the building were testing whether she was listening.

Outside, the street lay suspended beneath a low grey sky. The days between Christmas and New Year never seemed to belong properly to time. They hovered, neither celebration nor beginning, and Anna felt herself hovering with them. She glanced at the garden through the window, noting how the weeds seemed to creep closer to the house with each passing day, almost as if they were trying to tell her something she wasn't ready to understand. She turned away from the tree and went into the kitchen.

The clock above the back door read 3:20.

It had read 3:20 for days.

She had bought a new battery. It lay unopened beside a stack of Christmas cards, still smiling, still wishing her things she did not recognise herself wanting. She left the clock untouched. It felt important that time had stalled, that nothing was being demanded of her yet.

The kettle clicked off. She poured the water, watched the tea darken slowly, patiently.

Her phone buzzed.

The sound cut through her like a blade.

She froze, mug halfway to her mouth, heart stuttering. For a moment, she considered leaving it — letting the buzzing stop on its own — but her hand moved before she had decided.

Missed call.

No name.

Just a number she almost recognised.

That recognition pulled at something inside her, something old and sore. She turned the phone face down on the table.

I did not mean to call her yet.

That is what I tell myself — that there was still a yet, that timing remained intact. But time here does not behave as it should. It loosens, stretches, and folds back on itself. Intention becomes slippery.

I always wait. It is because of a promise made one cold night under a sky peppered with uncertain stars — a promise to hold on, even when distance and time tried to tear us apart. That moment lingers, keeping me here, suspended in expectation.

The house remembers me. It knows the weight of my footsteps, the exact place the floorboard used to creak on the stairs. Even now, when I am not there in the way I once was, the walls tighten when I think of them.

She notices the tree. She always does.

The blinking light unsettles her. It should. It is not random. It falters the way things do when they are caught between states.

Like me.

Like her.

She will look at the envelope soon. She always does after I call. It anchors her — gives her something solid to resist. Paper still carries weight. Proof. I chose it carefully.

She does not open it.

Of course, she doesn’t.

Anna picked up her mug again, hands trembling now. The tea tasted thin. She left it untouched and moved into the sitting room, switching on the lamp. It flickered, then steadied, casting shadows that felt heavier than usual.

The blanket still smelt faintly of him.

She sat down hard, pulling it around her shoulders. Her chest tightened. Grief did not arrive for her in waves — it pressed, constant and dull, like something slowly compressing her from the inside.

Her phone buzzed again.

She looked this time.

You need to open it.

Her breath caught.

Another message followed.

Before it’s too late.

“No,” she whispered.

She stood abruptly, crossed the room, and yanked open the front door.

Cold air rushed in.

The street was empty.

Too empty.

Her breath fogged in front of her as she looked up and down the road, heart hammering. Then she saw it — a light on in the house opposite.

That house should have been dark.

The couple who lived there had gone away on Christmas Day. She had waved them off herself.

The light flicked off.

She slammed the door shut and locked it.

That was not my intention.

I feel it immediately — the shift, the tightening of something that should not be drawn into focus. This place is crowded with things that do not like to be noticed.

I call her again.

This time she answers.

“Stop it,” she says. “Please. Just stop.”

I wish I could explain that stopping is not the same as ending. That silence has weight here. Consequences.

“I can’t,” I tell her. “Not now.”

She slides down the door on the other end of the line. I can hear it in the way her breathing changes.

“You’re not real,” she says.

“If that were true,” I reply gently, “you wouldn’t recognise my voice.”

Her question comes out broken.

“What do you want from me?”

“To remember,” I say. “And to choose.”

The words settle between us, heavier than they should be.

I end the call.

Anna sits on the kitchen floor for a long time, phone still pressed to her ear. The house holds its breath with her. When she finally stands, it is with the careful movements of someone afraid the world might shift if she isn’t gentle.

She picks up the envelope.

The tape peels away easily.

Inside is a photograph.

The house.

This house — but altered. Darker. Boarded windows. The garden was strangled with weeds. The front door hung open, warped and crooked.

On the back, written in careful ink:

This is where waiting leads.

Her phone buzzes one final time.

She does not answer.

Outside, somewhere too close, a firework explodes — not celebratory, not joyful — but sharp, warning. The sound ripples through the street and into places it should not reach.

The clock still reads 3:20.

She does not move.

Neither do I.

We are suspended — she inside the house, me in the space just behind it — both of us caught between what was and what has not yet been allowed to happen.

I remain because she has not chosen.

She has not chosen because I remain.

This is the danger of limbo.

It is not emptiness.

It is a company.

And it is waiting. The scent of pine still clings to the room, mingling with the chill of the early evening air seeping through the cracks. This atmosphere lingers, like a whisper of presence, felt but unseen.