Page 101 of Silk and Sirens

My gaze swept across the bedroom automatically, searching for the signs I’d learned to recognise. Empty pill packets. An untouched plate of food. An open bottle of wine on the bedside table.

“You said you’d come watch me play,” I continued, trying to sound cheerful even as something felt wrong. “I promise to play your favourite.”

I crossed the room, my footsteps muffled by the thick carpet. A thin strip of light glowed beneath the bathroom door, so I knocked once. Twice.

“Go away!” Mum’s voice cracked through the wood, wet and broken, like she’d been crying for hours. “Baby … just … leave me alone.”

My stomach dropped. A sharp, metallic smell hit me as I slowly pushed the door open. Mum was hunched over the sink, shoulders shaking, holding her wrist under the running tap.

“Mum?”

For a moment, I didn’t understand what I was seeing.

But then she glanced over her shoulder, eyes widening in panic when she realised I was standing there. “Baby, I told you to⁠—”

“What have you done?” I cried, rushing forward. The sink was splashed with bright red, a kitchen knife lying on the side beside her, blood still coating the blade.

I immediately turned off the tap and grabbed a towel.

“You promised!” I said, my voice wobbling as I fought back tears. I had to be brave. I had to take care of her until Dad got home. “You promised you wouldn’t do this again.”

“I didn’t mean to,” she mumbled, voice thick. “I just … everything got too loud and I needed it to stop.”

I pressed the clean towel hard against the cut on her wrist, trying to stop the bleeding like I’d seen Dad do before. My hands were shaking, but I kept pressing.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, even though my throat felt tight. “It’s going to be okay. Dad will be home soon.”

Mum kept crying, soft and broken, her head resting against the mirror. She looked so small like this. This wasn’t my mum who made me dance with her in the kitchen, or who taught me how to play the piano. This was the one who’d disappear, leaving me alone.

But I wouldn’t do that.

I wouldn’t leave her alone when she needed me.

So I sat on the cold bathroom floor with her, holding the towel against her wrist and humming the song she always said was her favourite, until the bleeding slowed and Dad finally came home.

“I’m sorry, my baby,” Mum whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry …”

It was Langdon who I saw first, his height towering over the nurses as they rushed around him in the busy Accident & Emergency. He waved when I caught his eye, his hands immediately coming up to sign.

“She’s okay.”

This strange tightness inside my chest didn’t ease. “What the fuck happened?” I asked as he walked me through a set of double doors.

“She was attacked by a man with a knife,” he signed, then shrugged like it was an everyday occurrence. “Her friend took the brunt of it.”

My stomach dropped at the word friend. A dark, ugly feeling I refused to name twisting inside me. “Why the fuck were you even there?”

“I was following her.”

“Why were you following her?” I asked through clenched teeth.

He shot me a dirty look, as if the question was stupid.

“Where was Raj?” He was supposed to be shadowing her this morning.

Langdon side-eyed me. “I gave him the day off.”

Walking through the hospital corridor, we stopped at a curtain that I immediately pulled back. Aeris sat on one of the hospital beds, her legs dangling over the edge while a doctor examined her shoulder.