The hum of the lights grows louder. My chest tightens. This can’t be real. Itfeelsreal—the weight of the chair, the air-con againstmy arms, the ache in my back—but I keep waiting for something else to happen, for the static to break.
I blink, and I’m somewhere else.
Rosa’s Corner. Grandma’s old diner. Plates clatter, coffee hisses. The smell of grease and sugar makes my throat ache. She’s at the counter, wiping it down.
“You’re gonna be late for work, Mary-Cat,” she says without looking up.
My throat closes. “Work?”
“The bank,” she says, like that’s the only answer that ever existed. She sets down the rag, turns to me, but her face flickers in and out like bad reception. “You look tired.”
“I—” The word dies halfway out. I don’t know what comes next.
The door chime rings. I turn. No one’s there. The street outside is empty, too bright, edges melting into white.
When I look back, the diner’s gone.
I’m at my desk again. The computer hums. The overhead light buzzes like it’s struggling to stay alive.
My phone sits beside the keyboard, screen lit with a photo of me and Evan. His arm around me, both of us smiling too hard. I stare at it until the grin feels plastic. My stomach twists. It feelswrong. Like I’m looking at a stranger. Like I’m wearing someone else’s skin.
I look around the office. People talk, phones ring, a pen clicks too fast, too loud. It’s all painfully normal.
That’s when it hits me. Something’s missing.
No—someone.
More than one.
A flash of green eyes. The scrape of a Russian curse. A laugh that always sounded like trouble. A voice that said my name like it belonged to him.
Anton.
Lev.
Dima.
Boris.
Their names land like stones dropped in water, rippling through this fake calm.
I stand, heart pounding. “Anton?”
No one looks up.
I walk through rows of cubicles, the air thick and wrong. “Lev?”
Phones keep ringing. Stephanie’s laughter cuts through the white noise.
“Boris?”
My voice cracks.
Nothing.
Even Dima’s silence isn’t here—and somehow that’s the loudest absence of all.
The office hums on like a machine that doesn’t know I’m missing parts.
