It was nearly midnight when Louise pulled the old manuscript box down from the shelf.

She hadn’t touched it in over a year. Hadn’t even looked at the spines of her journals — leather-bound survivors of half a decade’s worth of grief, headlines, and hushed conversations. The folders were still labeled Bronte, typed in lowercase Helvetica, impersonal and quiet. Like she’d once wanted her memories to whisper instead of scream.

You were already on the couch, half-watching the flickering TV light play across the walls. A wineglass sat by your hand, untouched. The news had long passed, but the screen now showed the tail end of a documentary rerun. You didn’t need to see the title to know what it was. You could tell by the music.

Louise didn’t notice it at first — not until a voice said his name again.

"Joe Goldberg, bookish and charming — a tragic antihero to some, a manipulative sociopath to others. His list of known victims includes Guinevere Beck, Delilah Alves, and Ryan Goodwin..."

She froze in the doorway. Her knuckles whitened around the box.

"...But what of Louise Flannery? The elusive writer-turned-survivor, known to the literary world as 'Bronte,' who vanished from the spotlight after his final arrest..."

You hit mute before the narration could continue.

Louise stood there another moment, breathing shallowly, then walked to the coffee table and set the manuscript box down. She didn’t cry. She hadn’t in months. But something trembled just beneath the surface — not pain exactly, but the ache of trying not to feel it.

“I thought they were done with this crap,” she said.

“They never will be,” you replied softly. “Not until someone gives them something real.”

She cracked the box open slowly. Her hair was loose from earlier errands, the strands curling at her temples. The overhead light caught the edges of her profile — sharp, tired, and still beautiful in that deliberate, vulnerable way of someone who’d been broken and rebuilt.

“I was going to write it all down. Back then.” Her voice was distant. “The whole truth. But I couldn’t finish. It was like touching a wire. Every time I tried, it hurt too much.”

You watched her fingers move over the edge of an old notebook — the same one she’d carried when Beck died. Inside: half-sketched outlines, unfinished scenes, truth wrapped in fiction. She held one page in particular, dated October 21st, the day after the bookstore exploded.

At the top: “The monster wasn’t in the pages. He was turning them.”

Louise let out a low breath. “If I don’t write this... someone else will. And they’ll twist it into something he never was. A myth. A misunderstood genius. They already have.”

She turned her gaze to you. Her eyes, always so clear, now searched yours for something beyond reassurance.

“But what if I’m not ready?” You didn’t lie. “Then you wait. But if you are... then say it loud enough to drown out the lies.” She hesitated. Then she nodded, just once. You leaned closer. “This story doesn’t end with Joe Goldberg. It ends with you. Still here. Still writing. Still healing.”

Louise smiled faintly. The kind of smile that wasn’t about happiness, but about survival. “I keep thinking of Beck. And Clayton. They deserved better.”

“They still do,” you said. “So tell the truth. Yours, not his." She slid the manuscript onto her lap, a new page clipped to the top. Blank. Waiting.

Then her phone buzzed — a new email notification. Subject line: “Re: Joe Goldberg — Exclusive Retelling?” Louise didn’t flinch this time. She simply turned the phone over. “No,” she murmured. “They’ve had his version.” Her hand found yours, warm and firm. “Now they’ll get mine.”

And then, with the weight of five years lifting slightly off her shoulders, Louise whispered his name — “Joe” — like exhaling a ghost. And for the first time... she smiled after saying his name . Then she kissed you. Gently. Deeply. Not to forget. But to begin.