Delores makes a small sound, almost a pitying laugh. “People around you isn’t the same as someone coming home to you.” She stands, wipes her gloves clean, and adjusts the watering can. “He used to eat standing at the counter. Never used the dining table. Bedrooms untouched except for sleep. Like he was passing through his own life.”
My throat tightens again, painfully.
“And now?” I manage.
Delores looks at me a moment longer than she needs to. “Now he’s… here,” she says, and there’s something quietly triumphant in it. “Not just in his body. In his life.”
I don’t know what to do with that. It feels too intimate, too revealing, like I’ve opened a drawer I wasn’t supposed to.
Delores moves to the door, unhurried. “I’ll be finished in a few minutes,” she says. “If you’d like tea, I can make it. If you’d like privacy, I can disappear as if I were never here.”
The choice makes my chest ache. “Tea would be nice,” I say.
“Of course.” She inclines her head, and something about the gesture feels like respect.
While she’s inside, I stay out on the rooftop a little longer, breathing cold air until my thoughts stop sprinting. When I come back down, there’s a mug waiting for me and Delores is already slipping away, quiet as a shadow.
————
I try to settle into the calm she leaves behind.
I curl into the corner of Anthony’s sofa with the blanket he gave me, mug warm against my palms, some mindless show playing on the television. The kind where nothing matters except the lighting and the storyline that you can forget five minutes later.
For a while, it almost works.
Then my phone rings. Unknown number.
I stare at it until it stops, then it rings again immediately, insistent. My pulse jumps. I swipe to answer before I can think too hard, wondering if it’s the clinic or a work phone, maybe. “Hello?”
“April,” a man says, smooth as polished glass. “April Swan.”
Every hair on my arms lifts. I know that voice. I’ve heard it on podcasts, on financial news segments, at pre-show events and runway nights. My mouth goes dry. “Who is this?”
A faint smile in his tone. “Aidan Snow.”
The name lands like a stone dropped in my stomach. CEO of North/Snow. The man Anthony’s world is built to keep out. My hand tightens around the phone. “How did you get this number?”
“I have an urgent concern,” he says, ignoring my question like it’s irrelevant. “About Anthony. And about you.”
My spine goes stiff. “If this isn’t business?—”
“It is,” he says. “And it isn’t. I’d prefer to discuss it in person. A discreet meeting. Twenty minutes. I can send a car.”
Absolutely not. “I’m not meeting you,” I say, voice sharper now.
A pause—measuring. “You should hear what I have to say.”
“I’m not interested,” I repeat.
Aidan exhales, like he’s amused. “You’re loyal,” he says. “That’s rare.”
“Is there a point to this call,” I snap, “or are you just enjoying yourself?”
The smile becomes audible. “There’s a point. I’m offering you an exit. A job. Something stable that doesn’t involve you getting dragged down with him.”
My stomach twists. “I’m not looking for a job.”
“Everyone is looking for safety,” he says, voice lowering. “Especially when they’ve tied themselves to a sinking ship.”
