Page 59 of What You left in Me

“Perfect,” Eleanor said, smooth as porcelain, and then, when it was just us again, when the room settled into that heavy quiet, she kept staring at nothing and said, “Not here.”

“Mom,” I tried.

“Not here.” Her fingers were ice around mine. “Not with all this.” A small nod toward the IV pole, the monitor, the curtain that separated us from the hallway and everyone’s eyes. She swallowed. “Later.”

“Okay,” I said, because I love her, and because even my curiosity knows when to step back. “Later.”

“Don’t tell Julian,” She added, and looked at me finally, a look I recognized from when I was fourteen and asking the wrong questions outside a bathroom door. “He’ll make a mess we cannot clean.”

I almost said, maybe we should let someone else mop for once. But her pulse juddered under my palm and the old protective part of me woke up like it had never slept. “I won’t,” I said. “But we should…”

“Later,” she repeated, words clipped. Then softer, like a secret falling out: “Please.”

I know that later is never going to come.

###

A low chime pulls me up. The gas light. Julian makes a thoughtful sound and signals. “We’ll stop,” he says. “You want anything from inside?”

“Something minty,” I say. “And, if they have it, a tiny miracle.”

“If they’re out of miracles, will an oatmeal cookie do?”

“I’ll take a cookie, sure,” I sigh.

We pull into a station that hasn’t changed its fluorescent bulbs since 2009. A kid lingers by the door in a hoodie too thin for the evening, a stack of scratch-off tickets in his hand. A couple argues quietly near the windshield wiper fluid rack. The clerk is on the phone, laughing at something that has nothing to do with us. The pump gleams with warnings nobody reads.

“I’ll get it,” Julian says. He leans across to brush a curl out of my cheek. “Back in a minute.”

The car door shuts with a neat sound. He walks to the pump with that smooth briskness that once made me feel like everything would be okay. He swipes his card, watches the numbers roll, tucks the receipt without looking at it. The smallness of the scene calms me for exactly three breaths.

A vibration startles me.

But it isn’t Julian’s phone lighting up in the console this time, which is usually the case — it’s mine.

My screen glows in my lap. Unknown sender. No name, no preview text, just a file attachment sitting there like a dare. For one suspended second, the world stays normal, fluorescent hum, pump ticking, and Julian standing at the machine with his shoulders squared.

Then, the message expands.

UNKNOWN:You should see this.

A zip file waits underneath it. My chest goes tight, a warning I’ve learned not to ignore. I glance at Julian and open the file.

Thumbnails populate in a neat little grid: screenshots. Blue bubbles. Gray bubbles. A header with a name that isn’t mine. A cadence that feels like habit. Something hot and cold moves through me all at once, and the air in the car gets suffocating.

I tap the first image.

Sunshine:Still thinking about the elevator.

I know the exact moment my heartbeat goes wrong because the edges of the world come into view and then smear.Sunshine. The name hits my stomach and the floor tilts under my feet even though I’m sitting. He has never called me anything but Ariane. Sometimes, he tries on “Ari”—but that’s it. Sunshine is wrong. Sunshine is for someone else.

Another one.

Sunshine:Can we steal an hour? 314 again. Key’s at the desk. Use your name.

I could look away. I have that option. I could tell myself this is a group chat for some marketing campaign where lifts are elevators and elevators are lifts and everyone speaks inmetaphors. Or I could do the thing I’ve always done since I was old enough to understand the shape of a lie: face it.

My hand moves.