Nothing.
Whatever was wrong with Sarah wasn’t external. It was internal—something she was carrying alone.
And she didn’t trust me enough to tell me.
I tried to work after that. I really did. I sat at my desk, opened my laptop, stared at spreadsheets and vendor contracts and emails that needed answers. None of it registered. Every few minutes I found myself glancing toward the hallway, listening for footsteps that never came.
Sarah finished Lily’s session and left without stopping by my office. She always stopped by. Even on the days we argued, evenwhen she was annoyed with me, she’d linger in the doorway with some comment about Lily’s progress or a reminder about the next session. Today she slipped out like she was afraid of being seen.
I waited ten minutes before checking the cameras. She was already gone.
The penthouse felt wrong after she left. Too quiet. Too still. Lily wandered into my office with her sketchbook, climbed into the chair across from me, and started drawing without saying anything. She kept glancing at the door like she expected Sarah to walk back in.
“She’s sad,” Lily said finally, not looking up from her page.
My chest tightened. “Did she tell you that?”
“No.” Lily shrugged, her crayon moving in slow, careful strokes. “But I know what sad looks like.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. My daughter had spent two years drowning in silence and grief—she recognized sadness the way other children recognized colors.
“She’ll be okay,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I believed it.
Lily nodded, but her shoulders curled inward, and she kept drawing. When she finally turned the sketchbook around, she’d drawn three figures: herself, me, and Sarah. All holding hands. But Sarah’s figure was fading at the edges, like she was being erased.
Something cold settled in my stomach.
I didn’t know what Sarah was hiding. I didn’t know why she was pulling away. But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
Whatever she was carrying, it was tearing her apart.
And I wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold it together.
CHAPTER 18
Sarah
The coffee shopwas too loud—music blaring, espresso machine screaming, conversations bleeding together until everything was just noise. I’d picked a corner booth anyway, as far from the chaos as possible, and waited for Delia to show up.
She arrived ten minutes late, rushing in with paint-stained jeans and her hair falling out of its bun. “Sorry, sorry—got caught up at the studio. Jake decided today was the perfect day to have a feelings talk right before my class started.”
“How’d that go?”
“About as well as you’d expect.” She dropped into the seat across from me and immediately stole my coffee for a sip. “We’re either getting back together or breaking up permanently. Haven’t decided which yet.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“Says the woman who looks like she hasn’t slept in a week.” Delia studied my face with that artist’s attention to detail that missed nothing. “What’s going on with you?”
I’d been practicing this conversation in my head for three days, trying to find the right words. But now that she was sitting across from me waiting, everything I’d rehearsed evaporated.
“I think I have feelings for my boss,” I said instead.
Delia didn’t even blink. “I know.”
“What?”
“Sarah, I’ve known for weeks.” She flagged down a waitress and ordered her own coffee before turning back to me. “You talk about him constantly. ‘Hector did this, Hector said that, you should see how good Hector is with Lily.’ It’s adorable and also kind of painful to watch.”
