My finger hit the elevator button over and over until the doors slid open. When I finally reached the lobby, I pushed through the doors before they were halfway apart.
The cold December air hit me like a slap the second I stepped outside. I sucked in one breath, then another, letting the chill burn its way into my lungs and chase away the suffocating feeling. The street was busy with morning traffic, normal people living normal lives, and I envied every single one of them.
“Mr. Rutherford.”
I turned. One of the maintenance guys was standing beside a lamppost with a cigarette between his fingers. He looked older than I remembered—more gray in his hair, deeper lines around his eyes. But then again, I probably looked like hell, too.
“The Rutherford part is a joke right now,” I said.
His face softened. He’d worked around our house when I was a kid. He knew the story. Everyone who’d been around long enough knew what Jack Rutherford had done to his family.
“Long time no see, Dom.” He offered me his pack of cigarettes. “What brings you here?”
I took one without thinking. It had been years since I’d smoked, but today felt like the right day to pick up bad habits again.
“Family reunion,” I said, the words bitter with smoke.
He nodded like that explained everything. Maybe it did.
The smoke curled upward when I exhaled, gone before it reached the streetlights. My mouth went crooked watching it disappear, and I wondered if that’s all my father saw when he looked at me... something fleeting that he wouldn’t have to deal with. Something that would vanish on its own.
Fuck it. Who gives a shit what he thinks?
I took another drag, the burn in my throat feeling so good.
Movement from across the road caught my eye. A group from the firm was gathered near the white van, loading luggage and looking like they were heading somewhere important. But what stopped me mid-drag was the woman in the pink puffy jacket.
She was following a man in a suit, talking to him, or at least trying to. She leaned forward slightly, attempting to pull his attention, to close their distance. He had his phone out, scrolling through something, his focus on something more important than her. And yet her smile wasn’t fading, like she believed if she just held it long enough, eventually he’d look up.
I knew this. The smile, the effort to engage, the way she kept pace beside him even though he was treating her like air. I’d done that myself before, reaching for someone who never looked back.
The difference was I’d learned to stop reaching. She hadn’t.
My chest compressed like something had grabbed hold and squeezed it. When I glanced down, I’d crumpled the cigarette without realizing.
Suddenly, my legs wanted to move. I wanted to cross that damn street and rip that phone out of his hands, to grind it into the asphalt with my boot. Then I’d step between them, block out the world until it was just her and me, and she’d never have to work that hard for someone’s attention again.
The thought came out of nowhere, so clear and so final it felt like a law of nature. It jarred me.
“Who’s that?”
“Derek—”
“No, the one in pink.”
“That’s Eunice. Front desk.”
Eunice.I couldn’t take my eyes off her, the way she was still trying even while he completely ignored her.
“Where are they going?”
“Hope Peak. Some big inheritance case.”
I watched as the man finally acknowledged her with a dismissive nod, then climbed into the van without offering to help her with her bag.
My world, which had been gray and white noise a second before, suddenly had a purpose, a center.
Her.
