Maybe you stopped fitting into the life we built, into the magazines and the sparkle and Carrie’s chaos.”
He says it like it’s all on me.
Like the weight of losing her didn’t cave my chest in.
Like grief didn’t build a house inside me I haven’t been able to move out of.
I scoff.
Pick up my glass.
Step toward him.
Then stop when I see it...
That look in his eyes.
The quitting time look.
The one that tells you you’re not worth fighting for anymore.
“Oh, your eyes said it was quitting time long before your lips ever broke my soul, Blake.”
Before I knew his name, I knew his rhythm.
The mailroom guy with the quiet eyes and the habit of humming songs no one else seemed to know. Every morning at 9:37, he passed my glass cube—half a smile, the faint scent of cedar and rain. Sometimes he’d leave the stack of mail a little askew, like he knew I’d straighten it just to feel in control of something.
We never really spoke.
A nod. A half-smile. An echo of something that felt safe.
After Blake left, I started noticing things I never had before. The way the office hummed like a beehive, everyone pretending they weren’t starving for something real. The way the light hit his shoulders when he leaned over the mail cart. The way he noticed when I forgot to eat lunch.
One afternoon, he left a coffee on my desk. No name, no note, just a cup with“For when words don’t help”scrawled across the side in black marker.
I almost cried over that stupid cup.
The next day, he caught me watching him.
“Too strong?” he asked, nodding toward the coffee.
“Too kind,” I said.
He smiled, soft. “Guess I overdid it, then.”
His voice wasn’t slick or cocky. Just warm. The kind of voice that could coax light into a dark room.
Later that week, he found me in the lift, late, tired, mascara bleeding regret.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Do I look okay?” I laughed, but it cracked like glass.
He didn’t flinch. “You look like you’re holding your breath underwater.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Then breathe. It’s allowed, you know.”
