LILY
The elevator hums as it climbs. Forty-three floors. I've ridden this elevator before, but today it feels different. Slower. Tighter. Like the walls are closing in with each floor that passes.
I read the message my boss sent me for the hundredth time.
Meet the client from the Gold Coast apartment at 11:30. They want to talk to you.
No explanation. No context. No hint about what this meeting is actually about. Just a summons delivered through text message at seven this morning while I was stocking shelves at the grocery job.
I tried calling my boss three times. She didn't answer any of them.
So I texted. Fingers shaking as I typed out the words.Is this about the whiskey bottle? Did I do something wrong?
No response. Just silence. The kind of silence that feels deliberate. Intentional. The kind that's designed to make you sweat.
My hands are slick with perspiration. The phone screen is warm against my palm, tacky with moisture. I wipe my hand on my jeans. The denim is rough under my fingertips. Grounding. Real. I read the message again. The words haven't changed. They won't change. But I keep looking anyway, like maybe I missed something the first ninety-nine times. Some hint. Some clue about what's waiting for me when these elevator doors open.
They want to talk to you.
The elevator passes the thirtieth floor. Then the thirty-fifth. Each number lighting up feels like a countdown. Like I'm ascending toward something I can't escape.
I've been a wreck all morning. Shaking. Distracted. Unable to focus on anything except this message and what it might mean.
At the grocery store, I knocked an entire display of eggs off the shelf while restocking. Twelve cartons. Thirty-six eggs per carton. Four hundred and thirty-two eggs total. I did the math while I was on my hands and knees cleaning up the mess.
Yolk and white spreading across the linoleum floor in a viscous pool. Yellow and clear mixing together. The smell was overwhelming.
The manager didn't yell. He just stood there. Looked at me with this flat, disappointed expression that made my stomach twist into knots.
Like I was a problem he was tired of dealing with.
Like I was one more mistake away from being let go.
I can't afford to lose either job. Not now. Not when everything in my life feels like it's balanced on a knife's edge.
I have two weeks to pack up everything I own and find somewhere else to live so Henry can move in with his girlfriend.
She's pregnant. Just found out a month ago. They need space. Need stability. Need a place to build a life together. To raise a family.
And I'm still helping Henry pay off the gambling debts. The ones he swore he was done with. The ones he promised would never happen again.
I need to help him. I owe him that much.
When our parents died, I was five. Henry was fifteen.
I miss them. I do. But I barely remember them. Just fragments. Scattered pieces of memory that might be real or might be things I've constructed from old photographs and stories our aunt used to tell.
My mother's laugh. Bright and sudden like bells. My father's hands. Calloused and strong, lifting me onto his shoulders so I could see over the crowd at the farmers market. The way the house smelled on Sunday mornings when my mother baked cinnamon rolls from scratch. Sugar and butter and cinnamon and warmth filling every room until the whole house felt like comfort itself.
But Henry remembers everything. He was old enough to understand what we lost. Old enough to feel their absence like a physical wound that wouldn't heal. Like something vital had been carved out of his chest and the hole just kept bleeding.
He got angry after they died. So angry. At the world. At God. At our aunt for trying to replace them even though she was doing her best. At me for being too young to understand what we'd lost.
He started skipping school. Hanging out with boys who were older. Meaner. Boys who knew how to turn anger into something useful. Something profitable.
He'd disappear for days at a time. Come back with bruises. Or bloodied knuckles. Or eyes so dilated his pupils were just black holes. Always in some kind of trouble. Always one step ahead of consequences that kept getting closer.
Our aunt took us in. Loved us. Tried her best to hold us together. To give us stability and routine and something that resembled a normal childhood.
