The silence that followed was immediate and brutal.
I stood in the middle of my kitchen with the coffee still not dripping and my chest feeling too full and too hollow at the same time.
Not angry.
Not demanding.
Not even disappointed.
Just… present.
Which meant I couldn’t dismiss it. Couldn’t outrun it. Couldn’t label it unfair and use that as an excuse to shove it aside.
I stared at my phone until the screen dimmed.
Then I turned it face down again like that counted as restraint.
Coffee first, I reminded myself.
Then the rest of my life.
The mug in my hand was the one I’d been using all week—white ceramic, plain, nothing special. But the second it warmed my palm, my brain supplied Dominic’s hands over mine like a memory that didn’t need permission.
I set it down too fast. Coffee sloshed and I didn’t even wipe it up right away.
As if the mug had betrayed me.
As ifIhadn’t.
The apartment felt sharper this morning. The air too clean. The quiet too honest. Even my productivity had a different edge after last night—like everything I did had to prove I was still the person who stayed in control.
I opened my laptop on the couch and pulled up yesterday’s files.
Work.
Safe.
Objective.
A set that had been all hard lines and hostile mood and calculated beauty. The photographer’s style was strict—high contrast, oversaturated edges, faces like mannequins, emotion like an accessory.
I’d shot my softer alternates anyway.
Habit.
Stubbornness.
Maybe something else.
I scrolled through the thumbnails, selecting, renaming, cataloging like the labels could keep me calm.
Then I saw it.
A frame I didn’t remember taking.
Or maybe I remembered and I just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
She was in it.
