All summer, we’d lived like there was no tomorrow.
Swipe the card.
Book the trip.
Order another round.
And then September came and reminded us—brutally—that tomorrow was never guaranteed.
Beth had been dumped.
My relationship with Sage had detonated.
Kristen was gone.
Jim wasn’t even hiding his marital problems anymore.
It was like we’d all been living inside a snow globe—bright, perfect, contained—and someone finally picked it up and shook it hard.
I logged into HR.
Downloaded the forms.
Faxed them to my doctor. The machine whined and screeched like it was protesting. Thirty minutes later, the fax came back. Signed. Official. I forwarded everything to HR, cc’d myself, and logged out.
That was it.
Just like that.
I didn’t tell anyone. Not Tony. Not Jim. Some things are too personal to explain. Some ghosts don’t want witnesses—not even your best friends.
I stood, grabbed my jacket, then stopped.
Beth.
She was at her desk, shoulders slightly hunched, fingers flying over the keyboard like speed was the only thing keeping her upright. She looked smaller lately. Like the office had started swallowing her whole.
“Hey,” I said quietly. “You got a minute?”
She looked up, startled, then nodded. “Yeah. Conference room?”
We walked down the hallway together, side by side, not talking. The closer we got, the heavier the air felt. The door loomed at the end like a bad memory.
She stopped.
“Oh.” Her voice caught. “Conference room.”
Right.
This was where we all stood. Where we watched. Where time split in two.
“Let’s not,” I said quickly. “Coats?”
She nodded again, already reaching for hers.
Outside, the air cut sharp and clean. Cold New England fall. The kind of day where the sun shows up but refuses to help. Leaves scraped across the sidewalk in dry, skittering sounds as we walked.
I shoved my hands into my pockets.
