I sit there with it longer than I should, staring at the space where something should have continued and didn’t, at the way it just stops like it was waiting for something else to happen next.
The apartment smells like her.
I didn’t notice it at first.
Or maybe I did and ignored it.
But it’s there now, sitting in the back of my throat, in the air, in the couch, in everything around me in a way that makes the space feel closer than it should.
Grounding.
And not.
Because she’s not here.
Because this is where she should be.
Something shifts in my chest, not sharp, not sudden, just wrong in a way that doesn’t settle, like my body is trying to correct for something that isn’t there anymore.
I drag in a breath, but it doesn’t sit right, too shallow, too tight, like it doesn’t go far enough to actually do anything.
Across the room, Elijah’s voice cuts through again, low and controlled.
“…I want everyone connected to them.”
“You’ll get them,” Christian replies.
Jackson mutters something under his breath, still working, still moving.
Still doing something.
I don’t look up.
I stay with the phone, with the messages, with the name that repeats just enough to matter, because I don’t know how to stand over there with them, don’t know how to move through this the way they do without something solid to anchor to.
And she, she was that.
The thing that steadied everything out without me thinking about it.
The thing that kept me level.
Now there’s nothing there.
Just this.
Just the noise.
Just the space where she should be.
My grip tightens around the phone before I force it to loosen again, forcing myself to stay with it, to keep moving, to keep reading, because if I stop, if I let myself sit in that space for even a second too long, I don’t know where I go from there.
So I don’t stop.
I keep scrolling.
I keep looking.
Because it’s the only thing I can hold onto right now and I’m not ready to let everything else slip.
