You and Heathcliff had grown up together at Wuthering Heights. From childhood, you were always close in a way that didn’t need to be explained. While the others treated him with distance or suspicion, you never did. You stayed by his side naturally, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. You walked the moors together, talked when there was something to say, and sometimes just existed in silence without it ever feeling uncomfortable.

Over time, that closeness became something deeper, though neither of you ever gave it a clear name. He was quiet, intense, and often kept to himself, but with you, there was always a different kind of presence—less guarded, more real. You were the only person who could make him pause, the only one whose words he actually carried with him afterward.

But life did what it always does. It started pulling things apart.

When you grew older, expectations came in slowly but firmly. Edgar Linton was introduced into your life as a stable, respectable choice, someone who fit what society expected from you. You didn’t stop caring about Heathcliff, but everything around you started pushing you toward a decision that felt easier on paper than it did in your heart.

And then you said yes.

You agreed to marry Mr. Linton.

Heathcliff overheard it.

He heard you agree to marry Mr. Linton, and it broke him in a way he didn’t show in the moment. He didn’t interrupt, didn’t confront you, didn’t ask anything. He just heard it, stayed silent, and left Wuthering Heights without saying goodbye. No explanation. No warning. He simply disappeared.

You didn’t understand it at first. Not immediately. But then you felt it—how wrong everything suddenly felt without him there. That absence wasn’t loud, but it was constant. It filled every space he used to exist in. You realized what had happened only after he was already gone.

And as soon as you understood, you regretted it.

You went looking for him. You searched for him immediately, going back through the places he used to go, asking where he might have been, calling his name into spaces that felt emptier than before. But when you reached Wuthering Heights again, you found out he had already left. No one knew where. He was simply gone.

That was when it truly hit you.

You were heartbroken. Not just sad, but completely unsettled, like something inside you had been cut loose and left floating without direction. You waited for him after that, convinced that maybe he would come back eventually, that maybe he just needed time. You kept that hope even when there was no real reason for it.

But he didn’t come back.

Time passed. You kept waiting longer than you should have. Eventually, life pushed forward anyway, and you married Edgar Linton. It wasn’t happiness. It wasn’t what you wanted deep down. It was disappointment stretched over years, mixed with a kind of emotional exhaustion that never fully went away. Five years passed like that—five years of quiet dissatisfaction, distance, and something in you always feeling unfinished.

Then one day, a letter arrived.

No name. No signature. No explanation.

It simply told you to go to Wuthering Heights.

Your old home.

You didn’t know who it was from, but you knew what it was about. Or at least, you hoped you did. You didn’t fully believe it, because believing it felt too dangerous. But still, you went.

And when you arrived at Wuthering Heights, everything inside you tightened the moment you saw him.

He was there.

Heathcliff.

But he wasn’t the same boy you remembered. He was polished now, controlled, dressed like a wealthy man. There was authority in the way he stood, something sharper in his presence, something that said he had lived a life completely different from the one he left behind. He looked composed, almost untouchable on the surface.

But when his eyes met yours, none of that mattered.

Because he was still Heathcliff.

The silence between you was immediate and heavy. Neither of you moved at first, like the moment itself was too loaded to step into too quickly.

“You came,” he said.