Unbalanced

M Mehran

Callum Ward never noticed the imbalance at first. Balance is like gravity—when it works, you don’t think about it. When it fails, you fall.
He used to be steady. The kind of man who woke up before his alarm, ironed his shirt twice, and brewed coffee like a ritual. He believed if you organized the outside world, the inside would follow. But life doesn’t always agree. Sometimes it throws its weight on one side until everything tilts.
For Callum, that tilt began the day his wife disappeared.
The Tilt
The police asked the usual questions. When did you last see her? Did she seem upset? Did you two fight?
Callum answered honestly. He didn’t remember fighting. He didn’t remember much of anything anymore. That, apparently, made them suspicious.
Grief does strange things to a mind. It fogs it, warps it, forces it to replay moments like broken film. The house felt uneven without her—rooms too quiet, chairs misplaced, doors slightly open like someone had just left.
It wasn’t just the sadness. It was the guilt.
Because the truth that Callum never said out loud was simple: he felt her leaving long before she actually left. Conversations that didn’t reach their endings. Dinners eaten in silence. A growing distance that could have swallowed oceans.
One night, two weeks after she vanished, Callum heard footsteps upstairs.
Not loud. Not violent. Just… footsteps. Familiar in rhythm, like someone pacing. Like someone thinking. He picked up a flashlight and climbed the stairs.
Halfway up, the light flickered. The footsteps stopped.
He whispered her name.
Silence answered.
But on the landing, he noticed something new: her necklace, hanging on the doorknob. The same gold chain she wore every day. He hadn’t seen it since the night she disappeared.
Callum’s legs nearly gave out.
The Unbalance Grows
People in the neighborhood started talking.
They called him “unstable,” “off,” “not right since she left.” Someone reported that he was wandering the street at midnight, as if searching for something he couldn’t name. Another swore they saw him talking to the empty air on his porch.
Callum didn’t deny it.
He heard her voice sometimes—soft, like she was speaking from another room. He smelled her perfume in the hallway. Sometimes, he even felt the mattress shift beside him, the weight of a second body settling into the bed.
Callum knew grief had gravity. It pulled. It dragged. It distorted. But this was something else.
One evening, when the sun was dying into a bruised purple, someone knocked on his door. Detective Rana Hale. She looked tired in a way that went beyond sleep deprivation.
“We found something,” she said.
The world tilted.
The Truth That Isn’t
Down at the station, they showed him a photograph. Callum’s wife. But not the woman he remembered—no soft smile, no warm eyes. Her hair was cut short. Her expression was sharp, like a blade disguised as a face.
She was standing beside a man Callum had never seen.
The detective spoke calmly. “There are signs she may have left by choice. We believe she was involved in something… dangerous. You may not have known her as well as you thought.”
Callum stared at the photo. His chest tightened, breath catching like a snagged thread.
That was the moment he understood: the imbalance wasn’t an accident. It was a message. His wife hadn’t vanished from life—she’d vanished into another one.
“You think she ran away?” he asked.
Rana nodded. “We think she’s hiding. And Callum… we think she may come back for you.”
A strange relief washed through him. Not fear. Not anger. Hope. If she left by choice, maybe she could return by choice. Maybe the world could even out again.
He went home that night with a spine full of static and a heart split down the center.
When the Scale Breaks
At 3:14 a.m., the footsteps returned.
This time, they were not gentle.
Callum didn’t reach for the flashlight. He didn’t hide. He walked toward the sound. Down the hall, through the open door, into the bedroom where it all began.
His wife sat on the edge of the bed.
She looked real. More real than memory. More real than grief. Her eyes were tired, frightened, alive.
“Callum,” she said. Her voice cracked like old paint. “I need you to listen. I didn’t leave you. I ran from them. And now—they’re coming.”
The room swayed. The world tilted. Every ounce of balance he had left snapped like a pulled thread.
“Who?” he asked.
She trembled. “The man in the photograph. I wasn’t supposed to survive. But I did. I’ve been trying to get back ever since.”
He crossed the room, sat beside her. He didn’t touch her, afraid she’d disappear like fog. “Why come back now?”
Her eyes lifted to his. “Because the only place I’m safe is with you.”
And just like that, the imbalance didn’t vanish. It became something new. Not steadiness, not order—shared weight.
Epilogue
They didn’t sleep that night. They packed bags. They planned. They prepared for a world that was no longer straight, no longer stable, no longer kind.
Callum learned something in that moment: Balance isn’t the absence of chaos—it’s choosing who you stand with when the world tips.
He had spent months trying to regain equilibrium, not realizing that maybe life isn’t meant to balance perfectly.
Maybe it’s meant to be held, together, even when it shakes.
Especially when it shakes.