Her bag felt heavier when she lifted it. She told herself it was only the laptop and the sandwich she’d forgotten to bring home. She shut down the monitor. She checked the drawer out of habit and found a pen and a paper clip and nothing else. She locked it anyway.
The hallway carried its own soundtrack at that hour. Phones in other rooms. Distant steps. A laugh that bounced and died. Her shoes made a soft sound on the tile. She tried to line up her breath with it.
At the door to the back stairwell, she let her palm rest a second on the bar. It was the end of a day she’d survived. That counted as more than it sounded like. She told herself if she could do this day, she could do another.
She thought of Leo at home, probably sprawled on his back with one paw in the air like a very lazy king. “I’m on my way, buddy,” she said under her breath. “We did it. In and out. No drama.”
She pushed the bar. The door gave with a tired hinge. The stairwell smelled like rain someone had tracked in earlier. It was cooler here, the kind of cool that makes your skin feel newly yours. She took the steps down in a steady rhythm until the last flight opened to the ground floor.
The back exit led straight to the lot. The lights over the doors hummed. Beyond them the rows of cars sat in clean lines. The night had that city hush where everything sounded further away than it was. A siren somewhere. A bus braking. A conversation too low to catch.
She paused inside and watched the glass for a beat. It held her reflection and the hint of asphalt beyond it. She checked her pockets for her keys and felt the metal against her fingers. The small ordinary weight calmed her in a way that made her want to laugh.
“Straight to the car,” she told herself. “Straight home.”
She put her shoulder into the door and stepped out. The air met her like a cool hand to the face. She blinked against the light and aimed for the row where she’d parked, second from the end, under the camera that clicked when it rained. She could see the curve of her back bumper from here, the familiar little scuff she’d never fixed.
She didn’t see the person standing beside it yet.
She hit unlock. Her taillights answered with a quick blink. She wrapped the strap of her bag around her hand. She let herself think about the feel of Leo’s fur and the way the apartment would smell like him and clean laundry when she opened the door.
Halfway across the aisle she felt it first, the change in the air a few feet ahead of her, the way quiet can hold a shape. She looked up.
The row wasn’t empty. A figure waited by her car, still and sure as if they’d been set there and told not to move.
Erin stopped walking without meaning to. The key pressed hard into her palm. Somewhere behind her a door clicked shut and the sound traveled the length of the lot.
She drew a breath that caught at the top and didn’t go anywhere. Then she took the next one and kept it inside her chest like it might help.
She took a step forward.
Forty
She’d been here before. Same row, same hum of the streetlights, same empty feeling that made her stomach twist. Every night for the past week she’d told herself it was the last time. That she’d drive home, go to sleep, let it go.
But she kept finding herself back in this lot, parked two spaces down from the exit with the engine off and her fingers digging half-moons into the steering wheel. She told herself she was just checking. Just making sure Erin was okay.
The truth sat in her throat: she couldn’t stand not seeing her.
When the door finally opened and Erin stepped into the light, Jamie almost missed it. For a second she thought her brain had made her up again. Then Erin’s bag strap slipped off her shoulder and she adjusted it the way she always did, that small, practical motion that shouldn’t have made Jamie’s chest ache the way it did.
She was really here.
Jamie’s breath caught.
Erin froze halfway across the aisle, keys clutched in her hand. Jamie took one step forward, then another.
“Erin.”
Her name felt strange in Jamie’s mouth after ten days of silence. It came out raw.
Erin didn’t answer. She just turned slightly, wary, like the sound itself might hurt.
“Please,” Jamie said, voice shaking. “Can we talk?”
Erin shook her head and reached for her door. “Not tonight.”
Jamie’s pulse jumped. “Erin, please. Just… just let me say something.”
