Who might mention him, or worse, not mention him—that careful silence that’s somehow louder than words.
I push off the door and walk to my bedroom. Three hours to nap, shower, and rebuild myself into someone who can survive a dinner with people who know exactly why I ran.
For a second, I let myself remember what it felt like to sit next to him in the lab. The way his voice dropped when he was working through a problem. The way he smelled like coffee and something clean, like someone who took care of himself without thinking about it. The way my whole body leaned toward him without permission.
I shut that door. Lock it.
I catch my reflection in the mirror. Blonde hair. Tired eyes. The same face I’ve been staring at for three months, trying to convince myself it belongs to someone stronger.
“You’re fine,” I tell her. “You’re completely fine. It’s just dinner. They won’t bring him up. And even if they do, you won’t care, because you’re over it. You’re over him.”
I set my alarm for six and lie down on the bed I haven’t slept in for three months.
The ceiling looks the same.
The ache in my chest feels the same too.
CHAPTER 2
Logan
I’ve rewritten this email fourteen times.
The first version was three paragraphs explaining the technical specifications of the signal interference problem. The second version was shorter, more direct. The third version accidentally included a line about how I haven’t slept properly in three months, which is not relevant to NeuraTech’s FDA submission and also not something I want documented in writing.
Versions four through thirteen were various attempts at finding the perfect balance between ‘professionally concerned’ and ‘not unhinged.’
Version fourteen just says:Bennett - need to discuss NeuraTech. Your office?
I delete it and start version fifteen.
This is what I do now. Obsess over word choices in emails. Reorganize my code libraries at 3 a.m. Build chatbots trained on old conversation logs, trying to recreate the way she used to talk to me—the rapid-fire tangents, the way she loved discussingideas, and the way she called my attempts at analogies ‘nerd poetry.’
Sometimes I get the responses to sound just like her. But mostly, the responses are just hollow. Empty pattern-matching without the spark. I can recreate her words, but not the way she’d lean close when she was excited about an idea. Close enough that I could smell her shampoo. Not the way my entire system would go haywire when her shoulder brushed mine.
That’s the thing about trying to simulate a person. You can get the words right, but you can’t code the way they made you feel.
I give up on the email and decide to go speak to Bennett in person. Face-to-face communication. Like a normal human. I can do that.
Probably.
The bright lights of the lobby make my headache worse. I navigate Mercer Tower on autopilot, mentally scripting the different conversational outcomes and prepping the optimal path for each branch.
I pass offices filled with analysts huddled over spreadsheets, associates power-walking between meetings. My soundtrack is the constant low hum of people making money move. I’ve never quite figured out how to exist in this space. My world is binary—problems either have solutions or they are bugs to be crushed. This world is relationships and politics and reading rooms in ways I’ve never mastered.
But Bennett’s office is familiar territory. Bennett is safe. Bennett has known me since my early twenties, when I was running a black-market grade-fixing operation out of my dorm room. He’s never once made me feel like I was too much.
I head for his office, nodding at people I vaguely recognize. Someone says, “Hey, Logan,” and I say, “Hey,” back withoutbeing entirely sure who they are. This is fine. This is normal. I’m blending.
Bennett’s office is empty.
His jacket is gone. His laptop is gone. The light is off.
I stand in the doorway, recalculating. It’s 6 p.m. on a Tuesday. Bennett isalwayshere at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday. I know his schedule better than I know most things about human behavior, because schedules are predictable and humans generally aren’t.
“He left early.”
I turn. Jenna is at her desk outside Bennett’s office, looking at me with an expression I can’t quite read. She’s always looking at me with expressions I can’t quite read. Jenna is a mystery wrapped in an impeccably organized filing system.
