Year Five: The Perfect Goodbye Plan novel Chapter 4

That night, Silvia felt feverish, her forehead burning, every breath like a puff of hot air.

She must be running a temperature, she thought, and pulled on a sweater before getting out of bed to look for a thermometer.-

The hallway was dark—Shipley still wasn’t home.

As she passed the guest room, she caught the faint murmur of voices drifting through the door.

“Shipley, are you sure it’s okay for me to stay here? Won’t she be upset?”

A woman’s voice. All too familiar.

Silvia froze mid-step.

She had heard this voice countless times over the years, echoing from Shipley’s phone, always lingering, impossible to shake.

It was Vianne.

He’d brought Vianne here.

Here, of all places—the house that held every sweet memory they had ever made.

She remembered that day: fat snowflakes swirling in the wind, Shipley wrapping his arms around her, pointing out this very cottage as if it were a palace built just for her. The storm never touched her—he shielded her from it all.

He’d said, “Sweet Silvia, this is my gift to you—a place just for us.”

But now, Vianne had crossed that threshold.

Through the closed door, Shipley’s voice was muffled, indistinct. All Silvia could make out were the teasing, intimate sounds of two people who shouldn’t have been this close.

Bitterness welled up inside her.

Three years, all swept away—no match for a single month of Vianne’s presence.

She turned away, unwilling to hear more, and slipped back to her own room.

Her fever made her limbs ache, skin flushed and burning, but deep down, all she felt was cold.

Late into the night, delirium took over. She floated in and out of consciousness, until suddenly she was cradled in arms that smelled faintly of jasmine.

“Sweet Silvia, you didn’t even notice you have a fever?”

His voice was as gentle as always, but tonight there was an edge, cool and distant.

She looked up, her blurred vision finding Shipley’s familiar eyes.

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