Chapter five
Lindsay
Istare at the card longer than I mean to.
It’s been stuffed in my purse for days.
Back at my favorite coffee shop, I find myself holding it again.
Elite Relationship Solutions.
Clean font. Heavy stock. Nothing flashy, no embossed gold or unnecessary flourishes. It doesn't promise miracles or transformation.
It just exists, waiting to be picked up or forgotten—useful only if someone decides they need it.
My coffee’s gone cold on the table beside me, untouched for longer than I care to admit.
Outside, the café continues its rhythm—cups clinking, conversations overlapping, the door opening and closing with mechanical regularity. Inside my head, everything is crowded.
I turn the card over in my fingers, feeling the weight of it.
***
By the time I get home, my shoulders are up around my ears.
Every sound registers as a possible threat. The elevator groaning down the hall. Footsteps echoing on the floor above. A car door slamming on the street below my window.
I tell myself I'm being dramatic.
But the feeling doesn't fade.
I lock my door, check it twice, then move to the window and pull the curtains closed even though it's barely evening. The city lights bleed through the edges anyway, too bright, too exposing.
My phone sits face-down on the counter where I left it.
Forty-three notifications, now building in a tsunami of overwhelm. I don't know what to do with these people and what they want from me.
I don't open any of them.
Instead, I think about the man with the business card outside my building. About the friend requests from people I haven't spoken to since high school. About the distant cousin who suddenly remembered my name and my address and my entire existence.
Everyone has opinions on what I should do next. How I can be useful to them.
Everyone has advice.
Nobody has asked me what I actually need.
I pick up Evelyn's card again, running my thumb over the raised text.
My chest feels tight.
I don't want advice. I don't want congratulations.
I don’t want to be treated like a magic ticket everyone wants to cash in.
I want something solid.
Something that doesn't want a piece of me in return.
