DANE
Carrie bursts past me as I slip behind the wall heels biting into tile, hair wild, phone already pressed to her ear like a weapon. She’s fire and chaos and care all at once.
And me?
I’m just the ghost in the hall again.
I shouldn’t have stayed.
I should’ve done what I always do dropped the envelope, said something casual, pretended I was just another shadow passing through her orbit.
But I didn’t.
I lingered.
Long enough to see her fingers tremble when she picked it up.
Long enough to see her eyes flicker to the corner of the page like she already knew whose poison waited inside before the seal even broke.
Blake.
Of course, it was him.
It’s always him.
There’s this thing that happens when grief hits you, don’t move.
You just… still.
Like your body has to turn to stone before your heart can bear the breaking.
That’s what she did.
She froze, breathing shallow, lips parting just slightly, whispering something I couldn’t hear but somehowfelt.
Like her soul was trying to call back the parts he took when he left.
I could’ve walked in.
Could’ve said something soft.You don’t have to hold it together. You never did.
But I didn’t.
Because I knew this wasn’t a moment to fix.
It was a moment tosurvive.
And Carrie, she’d catch her if she fell.
She always does.
Quietly, but in the light.
Me, I’ve always stayed in the shadows.
So, I stood there, behind the glass wall, as she pressed that small remote and turned her world dim.
The glass darkened to smoke, but I could still feel her pain vibrating through the air, humming through my bones.
