Page 57 of What You left in Me

I look at the clock, at the city, at the coffee I forgot to drink. I want fast more than I want perfect, but I don’t want stupid.

“Three,” I relent grudgingly. “If you need me, don’t.”

“Copy,” he says, and hangs up before I can change his mind.

I hold the phone in my hand until the screen goes black and my reflection stares back. A man I recognize and a man I don’t, layered. I set it down.

Coffee again. The second cup tastes like penance, too. I lean on the desk with both hands and try to make myself care about the board deck. I open it. Words and numbers, charts that perform confidence, the polite pageantry of being in charge. I add a note in the margin that says we should bleed the vendor before they bleed us, then delete it because other people read these.

I have all the quiet money buys, and still I can hear last night in the walls. Ariane’s mouth. Ariane’s “not yet” like a vow and a dare. Ariane’s eyes, full of all the wrong things, and me taking every wrong thing like a man starving in a room full of fruit he didn’t pay for. Her soft gasps and tortured expressions when I knew she wanted to scream but couldn’t. This needs to stop. Fuck. I need more of her.

I try to read a memo about an acquisition that will make Q4 less embarrassing. I try to answer a question about a venue that refuses to let us move a stage because of “historic weight limits.” I try to care that the catering team thinks “elevated comfort food” means charging six figures for mac and cheese. Every time I focus, the words blur and I’m back in a hallwaywith a hand on a wall and a girl who doesn’t belong to anybody looking at me like she might.

Three hours takes a lifetime to pass.

My phone buzzes on the desk like it’s waking me up from a dream. Unknown Contact. Good. He remembered to be anonymous.

UNKNOWN:Done. Screenshots attached.

UNKNOWN:Don’t forward from your primary. Please. I like my limbs.

A zip icon blooms on the screen. I open it. Thumbnails stack like teeth.

I click the first one and the room tilts.

Blue bubbles. Gray bubbles. A battery icon that says “ordinary day.” A header with a name that means nothing and will mean too much. The cadence is exactly what I asked for: suggestive, not explicit; careful, not careful enough. “Still thinking about the elevator.” “You looked incredible in that red dress.” “Can I steal an hour? 314 again.” A single “Delete this.” A midnight ping that reads like he thought of her and decided he deserved the thought. And there, the wrong nickname—bright, stupid, branded:Sunshine.

I swipe through them, and I feel the pressure backing off like someone took a boot off my chest. Not gone. I don’t get gone. But quieter. Like the house is finally breathing with me instead of against me.

Another message while I’m still staring.

UNKNOWN:You good?

UNKNOWN:How do you… want to handle payment. Asking for my blood pressure.

I wire the double and the retainer and a tip because fear should always be rewarded. The transfer confirmation pops up. Thirty seconds later:

UNKNOWN:holy fuck.

UNKNOWN:Respectfully, sir, please forget my name.

ME:We never spoke.

UNKNOWN:I died in 2017.

ME:Stay dead.

UNKNOWN:??

I drop the files into a folder no one will open unless they’re paid to be nosy,Vendor_Escalations, and back them up to a place my attorneys will never see unless I decide they should. I don’t text them to anyone. Not yet. You don’t pull the pin in an empty room.

She’ll see the truth. Even if I had to build it myself. It’s a shitty thing to think but it feels good anyway. There’s a kind of peace in choosing your sin and paying full price.

I close the laptop slower than I need to, like that makes the choice tidy. The house is still.

Fuck. My dad’s in a hospital bed while I’m here workshopping damnation like it’s a quarterly OKR. I should be at his side, or in a pew somewhere, mumbling words I barely remember. I haven’t been inside a church in over a decade unless a funeral forced me through the door. Even then, I counted exits and thought about parking. “Sinning” is the word they taught us to fear; I call it decisions with receipts. If God’s doing rounds, He can check mine. I’m not hiding what I am.

I stand, stretch my back, and let the morning lay itself out like a map I can burn. The work is still there. The emails.The meetings I won’t attend. The calls I’ll let ring until someone decides I’m a legend or an asshole. I put my phone in my pocket and walk to the window.