A beat.
Then Dominic said, softly, “Okay, Flash. Go.”
Not angry.
Not resentful.
Just… letting me.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” I promised.
“You don’t have to promise,” he replied. “Just do it.”
“I will,” I said again.
We hung up.
The silence that followed was immediate and loud.
I stared at my phone.
My thumb hovered over his name.
Over the text field.
Over the place where I could have said something real.
Instead, I opened my calendar.
And added a reminder to call him tomorrow.
Then another reminder to pick a term project.
Then another reminder to review Noor’s edits.
Then another reminder to send Frankie the mood board.
The screen filled with color blocks.
Green. Blue. Yellow.
Purple—still a suggestion.
I stared at it until my eyes blurred.
And told myself, like a prayer, like a lie, like a plan.
Tomorrow.
From Rachel’s Diary:
This was supposed to be two lines.
That’s all the time I have.
Work is crazy. René keeps pushing harder and I can’t tell if it’s because I’m improving or because he’s testing how far I bend before something snaps.
Mischa is worse. She doesn’t push. She just looks at the work and asks the one question I don’t want to answer.
