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The worst thing for grief is silence. And there’s a helluva lot of silence to be found in this penthouse. Every room is full of the stuff.
So even if Dmitri and his fiancée are my only options for human interaction, I’d take it.
Not that I have the choice.
My only lifeline to the outside world is my phone. So of course, I’ve clung to it like an unhealthy crutch. Between texts to Syrah, who I’ve realized is my only friend, I’ve been combing through my photo library, staring at albums that I haven’t looked at since long before their deaths.
To the shock and bewilderment of armchair therapists the world over, it’s not making me feel much better.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
SYRAH: hi sunshine. how you feelin today? are you on meds? work is boring as fuck without you.
I hesitate. It’s not like I can tell her what’s really going on, so I’ve led her to the impression that I’m deathly sick. I hate lying, though.
WREN: no meds yet. but i think im gonna see a doctor. feels like its getting worse, not better.
SYRAH: blech. does that mean ur not going to be in tomorrow either?
WREN: ill be lucky to get into work this week at all. miss you though.
SYRAH: how about I stop by after work with some hot soup?
WREN: thats sweet but i don’t want to infect you. pretty sure this thing is contagious.
SYRAH: dont tempt me. a few sick days to veg out on the couch sounds amazing.
SYRAH: shit, gotta go. big boss is coming this way
I start to type out, As in Dmitri? Have you seen his new PA? Does she look competent? Is she pretty?
I grimace and backspace. Is she pretty—God, I disgust myself. What does that matter? Why do I even care? Quickly, I delete the last part and press send.
SYRAH: yup. looks like my sorority sister.
Yup? As in yup, it’s Dmitri, or yup, she looks competent? Also, quite annoyingly, Syrah’s description in no way tells me if the new girl is pretty or not.
Sighing, I close the text thread and pull up my photo library again. I’ve scrolled all the way back to 2019. Rose and I were big into selfies that year. Her, because she and Jared were in the throes of googly-eyed young puppy love, and me, because I had finally moved out of the apartment I shared with her and into my very first grown-up apartment and I wanted to document every moment of my newfound independence.
I pull up a picture of the three of us shortly after we finished hauling all my junk into the basement unit. Jared’s face takes center stage, blown up disproportionately because of how close he is to the phone. Rose is at his right shoulder and I’m on his left. All three of us look sweaty, grimy, and disgustingly happy.
My heart aches as I stare at those frozen smiles. “If only you knew what was coming,” I whisper to the three oblivious fools on my screen.
Emotion wells up in my throat as I keep scrolling. Jared painting my bedroom. Rose baking a batch of brownies in my newly christened oven. The invincible cactus they bought me because I’ve never met a plant I didn’t kill (though I did in fact kill the cactus, too).
I still remember the way Rose hugged me that night, just before she and Jared left to go back to their place. “I’m gonna hate not having you in the next room.”
I laughed. “Your apartment is a two-minute walk down the street.”
“Not the point. We’ve lived together all our lives. It feels weird breaking tradition.”
“It’s time to make that second bedroom a nursery. I’m ready to live on my own and you’re ready to live alone with your husband for the first time ever.”
Jared had given me a wink. “We’re still gonna miss our third wheel. We invested in a really comfy futon for a reason. Any time you’re lonely, there’s still plenty of room at our place if you wanna crash.”
Jared was so good like that. He never made her feel like she had to choose between us. From the moment he met and fell in love with Rose, he accepted that I was going to be along for the ride.
Maybe that’s why it didn’t feel like such a stretch to come to me when they realized that their chances of having a baby would be next to zero. We did so much together those last few years.
