I made it through most of the morning without entirely falling apart.
Which, given the situation, was admirable.
I answered emails. Plowed through old reports. Finished some onboarding forms. I smiled graciously at the appropriate people and nodded at meetings I didn't play a part in. I even managed half a warm, or sort-of-warm, coffee without spilling it.
By lunchtime, my hands were stable.
Sort of.
"Go eat?" the woman in front of me parroted once more—still typing, never looking up.
I blinked. "What?"
She waved half-heartedly at her desk. "Lunch. You gonna go or what?"
"I—uh. I was gonna stay in. Get some things done."
Her eyes finally reached mine. "You're lying."
"What?"
"You're not working. You're just sitting there staring at that spreadsheet like it's a personal insult."
I looked at the screen. Blank. Right.
"I just have a headache," I mumbled.
She didn't believe it.
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
I didn't answer.
She made a frustrated sound, pushed her glasses up her nose, and at last swung her chair around to face me. "Listen, I don't know you, but I've worked here long enough to recognize when someone's falling apart."
"I'm fine," I cut in, more harshly than I intended.
She raised an eyebrow. "You sure? 'Cause you winced when that tall guy went by a little while ago."
I stiffened.
She saw.
"Told you," she replied, smirking now. "Ghost."
"I don't even know who that is," I replied hastily.
She inched closer. "Lucas Vale. He's. Kinda a mystery. Doesn't come in often, but when he does? The office goes on high alert. It's like. Weird royalty or something."
"Vale?" I replied.
"Yeah. You've never heard of him?"
I nodded my head, though the name made my stomach turn.
"He's not formally in charge, but he has enormous influence. Strategic safety advisor or something similar. But rumour has it, that he's interested in the company. Quiet partner. No one knows."
Lucas Vale.
Not just Lucas.
New name. New life.
No wonder he did not say a word.
He buried the past, and he'd done an excellent job.
But me? I was still dragging that night behind me like chains.
My co-worker stood up and removed her badge. "Come eat with me."
"I'm not really—"
"If you say 'hungry,' I swear I'll throw a granola bar at your head. Come on. Let's get some non-corporate air for twenty minutes."
I procrastinated. Then stood up.
Her name tag sparkled.
Isla. Logistics Associate.
Right. Isla.
She pointed down the hallway. "Let's go before I change my mind and eat my feelings alone."
I followed behind her.
Because anything was better than sitting around, hoping Lucas had remembered me.
Or worse—if he hadn't.
Isla led me out into a half-shaded area of benches under a sad little tree. It was one of those corporate-designated "relaxation areas" no one ever actually used, except to scroll through their phones or breathe without someone noticing.
She settled down as if by habit, opening up a sandwich and balancing her phone on her knee. "You allergic to anything?"
I looked at her. "What?"
"I've got tuna, egg, turkey. Don't touch the egg if you don't want to taste regret for the rest of the day."
"I brought something," I said, although I hadn't. I just needed something to say.
Isla raised her eyebrow. "Suit yourself." She handed me a bottle of water anyway.
We sat quietly for a minute. I watched people walk through the revolving doors. Nobody so much as glanced at us.
"You always that quiet?" she asked between chews.
"Only when I'm thinking."
"Thinking about spreadsheets?"
"Sure. Let's go with that."
She didn't press. Just chewed reflectively, watching me like she was compiling a profile in her brain.
You're not from around here," she said after a while.
"What was that, then?"
"How you cringe each time somebody greets you."
I laughed a small exhalation. "Blunt truth."
She shrugged. "I mean. You have this look."
"What look?"
"As though you've lived something and still are figuring out whether or not you can leave it behind."
This one hurt just a bit too close.
I folded back the tag on the water bottle. "We all live through something.".
"Not like that," she said to me. "I don't know what it is, and I'm not asking. But whatever it is—it's still with you."
I didn't answer.
She didn't require me to.
We yanked the silence out for longer. It wasn't awkward, surprisingly. Just. Quiet.
Then Isla reclined and said, with near nonchalance, "I noticed the way you looked at Lucas"
My throat constricted. "I don't know him."
"Didn't say you did."
"I—" I started and stopped. "He just. Surprised me. That's all."
"Mm." She dried her hands with a napkin. "We don't talk about him here."
"Why not?"
"Because no one knows where he belongs. Technically, he isn't our boss. But he doesn't answer to anyone either. Not even the CEO. He just shows up when he wants to, sits in meetings he's not on the roster for and leaves without warning."
"Sounds. exhausting."
"It is. His energy's weird, too."
I didn't speak. I couldn't.
Weird was one way to describe it.
Isla stood up, brushing crumbs off her dress. "Anyway. You don't have to talk about whatever's in your past. But don't let it get to you while you're trying to do this work."
I looked up at her.
She wasn't smiling, but her voice was kind when she said to me, "You deserve to start over. Even if the past still nips
At my desk, I tried to focus.
It didn't work.
Wrote two emails and deleted them. Spilled water on my papers. Forgot my password. Twice.
I blamed it on the heels. And the lighting. And the awful office chair. Anything but the real reason.
Which was stupid.
It was so stupid.".
The guy might not even be him.
But I knew he was.
Every step he took, every plane of his jaw, every grain of that distant stare—I remembered them all. I remembered tracing the lines of his laughter with my thumb pressed against the bleachers. I remembered the way it was when he told me I made him feel real.
Now?
He just walked past me like I was drywall.
I checked my watch. Only 3:12 PM.
How did that work?
A knock on the desk beside me.
I jumped.
A young guy—intern-age, probably—nervously smiled and handed me a file. "You're Mai, aren't you? Can you just drop this in the internal review room on your way out? It's on floor ten."
I nodded. "Okay."
He zipped off without waiting for an answer.
Floor ten.
Breeze.
I took the folder and walked towards the stairs.
Ten flights weren't so bad when you were trying not to think.
The review room inside was wedged between two conference rooms with glass walls. I kicked the door open with my foot and went inside.
Empty.
Dimly lit.
Quiet.
For the first time in a long time, my breath came more easily.
I put the folder in the drop box, stood, and turned—
And ran into someone.
Not hard. But hard enough that I took a breath like I'd been stealing from a store.
Lucas.
No. Lucas.
Close.
Too close.
He didn't blink.
Just stared at me.
His face was incompressible.
He wore the same expression people wear when they're trying to put you—something like a memory, but nothing concrete.
My mouth was dry.
His eyes raked over my face. Not lewdly. Not aggressively. Just. Warily.
As if he were checking off items on me.
I wanted to speak. Ask him if he remembered. Ask him if he knew. Scream, maybe.
Instead, I swallowed and murmured, "Sorry."
He didn't move.
Didn't step aside.
Didn't speak.
The hall behind him was empty. The silence pressed into my ears.
I cleared my throat. "I didn't mean to—"
"Do I know you?"
The voice was smooth.
Darker than I remembered.
But still his.
I opened my mouth. Shut it.
He tilted his head, looking at me like I was a problem that wouldn't be solved.
"Have we met?" he said.
I lied.
"No. I don't think so."
He looked at me one second too long.
Then he stepped aside.
I walked around him, neither slowly nor hurriedly—just so that I could convince myself that I was all right. Normal. Not apart at the seams by the second.
My shoulder bumped into his arm.
He smelled like cedar and ice.
I didn't like catching that.
I did not look back. Once. I walked away like nothing had happened like I hadn't felt the weight of his eyes down the hall.
Behind my desk, I shivered.
Not noticeably. Not enough for someone to see.
Just enough so that I couldn't keep my pen horizontal.
I scowled at it lying at an angle on my notepad.
That was all it was. A pen.
But my eyes started burning anyway.
Because I wanted to say something.
I wanted to ask: Do you remember the field? The moon? Me, screaming your name until I lost my voice?
I had to yell: You left me bleeding. You looked at me like you didn't know me, then disappeared.
But I apologized instead.
And all he wanted was do I know you?
I told him no.
I lied straight-faced, and I don't even know if it hurt more that he didn't know me. Or that I wished he did.
There's something worse than being remembered by someone who shattered you.
It's not being remembered at all.
"Hey." Isla's voice was quiet this time like she wasn't sure if she had any right to intrude.
I didn't look up.
She slowly sat down in her chair, rustling a bag of trail mix without opening it.
"You okay?"
No.
"Yeah," I said.
"You sure?"
I nodded.
We sat there in silence for a while. She didn't pry, and I didn't break.
I stared at the computer screen until the numbers became meaningless. Until the letters blurred together.
Until my breathing normalized at last.
It never got any easier.
I simply learned to pretend.