The call ended, but she didn’t move right away. Just stood there for a beat, staring at the dark screen before slipping her phone into her purse.
She turned toward the CTA entrance, the stairs glowing under harsh fluorescent lights.
Was she taking public transit?
The detail lodged itself where it didn’t belong.
She didn’t fit the easy categories my father lived by. She carried herself like someone who belonged in rooms like the one we’d just left, but she moved through the city like someone who couldn’t afford to be careless. In one beat, she was the light in the whole room, and the next, it looked like she was trying to disappear.
She paused at the top of the stairs, inhaled once, visibly steadying herself, then disappeared underground.
I stood there longer than necessary.
Why her?
The question surfaced uninvited, unwelcome.
Why had she pulled my focus when no one else ever had?
I’d dated. Women had filled roles in my life before: companions, expectations, and obligations. They existed on the periphery, temporary and contained. They never disrupted the center.
She hadn’t tried to be anything. She probably hadn't even noticed me.
She had simply existed. That unsettled me more than attraction ever could.
I turned away from the station entrance and headed toward Northwell.
Not home.
Home was quiet. Empty. It left too much room for thought.
Work was structured. Work was gravity. There was always something to focus on, to realign my thoughts.
The building rose ahead of me, glass and steel cutting into the skyline. Familiar. Predictable. I swiped in, rode the elevator alone, the hum grounding me as it climbed.
My office was dark when I stepped inside. I didn’t turn on the overhead lights, just the lamp near the window. The city stretched out beyond the glass, lit in controlled chaos.
I moved without thought to my bar cart and poured myself a generous glass of scotch, allowing myself to center in my surroundings.
Northwell Holdings.
We hadn’t built it on nostalgia.
We’d built it on containment, necessity.
Blackridge Academy had been the beginning, even if none of us had known it at the time.
An elite boarding school tucked away from anything resembling warmth. Polished stone buildings. Immaculate grounds. Rules for everything except how to be human.
Designed to contain children, not raise them.
We’d arrived there between twelve and fourteen, each of us carrying our own version of abandonment. Some sent away quietly. Some dumped there after scandals or divorces. One or two of us bounced through more than one school before Blackridge finally stuck.
We didn’t bond instantly.
We survived together through empty holidays, letters that went unanswered and staff turnover so frequent it taught you not to get attached.
Learning early that asking for more only led to disappointment.
