I wokeup knowing what day it was.
October fifteenth. One year.
The knowledge sat on my chest before I even opened my eyes, heavy and familiar, pressing down until it was hard to breathe. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, watching the early light creep across the water stains, and felt the weight of it settle into my bones.
One year since I'd held her hand and watched her slip away.
One year since I'd said goodbye to the woman who'd raised me alone, who'd worked double shifts and sacrificed everything and still somehow made me believe I could do anything. One year since the last person who'd known me my whole life had closed her eyes and left me behind.
I pressed my palms against my face. Breathed through the tightness in my throat.
Get up. Keep moving. That's how you survive.
My mother's voice, as clear as if she were standing in the room. She'd said that to me after Mateo died, when I'd wanted to crawl into bed and never come out. She'd said it while she was sick, too, on the days when the chemo made her so weak she could barely lift her head. Get up. Keep moving.
So I got up. I kept moving.
I showered without feeling the water. Dressed without seeing my clothes. Made coffee I didn't drink. Went through the motions of a morning routine that felt like someone else's life.
Cal knocked around eight. I knew it was him by how it used to sound, always the same, steady and unhurried, steady and unhurried.
"Hey." He took one look at my face and his expression shifted. "You okay?"
"Fine." The word came out flat. I tried again. "It's just...."
He didn't ask why. Maybe he already knew. Maybe he could see it written across my face, the grief I couldn't quite hide no matter how hard I tried.
"You want company? I'm off shift."
"No." I said it too quickly, and saw something flicker in his eyes. "I mean, thank you. But I need to work. I picked up a late shift at the café. I'll be fine."
He didn't believe me. I could tell. But he nodded anyway.
"I'm here if you need me."
"I know."
I closed the door. Leaned my back against it and let the silence of the apartment press into my skin. Ilet myself fall apart for exactly thirty seconds. It was the only time I had. Thirty seconds to feel the full, crushing weight of a year without her, the three hundred and sixty-five days of silence she’d left behind in every room. I stood there, eyes closed, feeling the sharp edge of the date cutting through the walls I’d built just to get through the morning. I thought of my mother, and then I thought of the man who had just walked away, leaving me to face the shadows alone.
When the time was up, I forced my breath to level out. I wiped my face, grabbed my keys, and went to work. The world didn't stop because your heart was a mess, and I had become an expert at organizing my grief into small, manageable boxes.
The café was a refuge and a prison all at once.
I threw myself into the rhythm of it. Coffee orders and pastry requests and small talk with regulars who didn't know that a year ago today, my world had ended. I smiled at customers and refilled mugs and pretended to be a person who was fine, who was normal, who wasn't counting the hours until this day would finally be over.
Joanna noticed. Of course she did.
"Go home." She caught my arm during the afternoon lull, her voice soft. "Lucy, I can see it on your face. Whatever's happening, you don't need to be here."
"I need to be here." I pulled away gently. "Working is better. Trust me."
"Lucy—"
"Please." I met her eyes, and I saw her understand. Saw her recognize the particular kind of grief that needed movement, needed distraction, needed anything other than stillness and silence and space to think.
She nodded slowly. Squeezed my hand once and let it go.
I went back to wiping tables. Restocking cups. Checking the espresso machine, the pastry case, all the small tasks that kept my hands busy and my mind quiet.
