This wasn’t just heartbreak.
This was grief.
Fear.
Trauma.
The next morning, I called my doctor.
I didn’t rehearse it. I just told the truth.
That I couldn’t sleep.
That I kept replaying that day.
That I felt hollow and wired at the same time.
That I was one bad night away from breaking.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
Then he said gently, “Ethan… call HR. I’m putting you on short-term disability. Six weeks. Paid leave.”
I swallowed. “I don’t need to be?—”
“You need to breathe,” he cut in. “And from what you’re describing, a fixer-upper in the mountains sounds like exactly the medicine you didn’t know you were prescribing yourself.”
I hung up and stared at my phone.
For the first time since September, I didn’t feel weak.
I felt… allowed.
To stop.
To heal.
To go north and rebuild something with my hands.
Not just a house.
Myself.
By the time I got to the office, I already knew.
Not in a dramatic, lightning-bolt way. More like the way you know a room has been abandoned before you even turn on the lights.
The elevators opened onto our floor and the silence hit first. No laughter drifting from the break room. No cluster of people arguing about lunch spots. No emails popping up—Happy hour?,Boat this weekend?,You in?
Nothing.
Just keyboards. HVAC hum. Fluorescent lights buzzing like they were tired of their own existence.
I sat at my desk and opened my inbox.
Cleared it.
Closed files I’d been pretending to work on. Answered the few emails that actually mattered. The rest felt pointless—like rearranging deck chairs after the storm already hit.
