“She’s gone,” I say.
Silence. Then, “Okay,” he replies, voice low. “We can find her.”
We can.
I know exactly how. Cameras, logs, accounts, airlines, subscriptions. A thousand quiet hooks that people never notice until someone uses them.
And I hear Lila again, flat and furious, telling me I don’t get to decide for her.
So I do what I should have done at the deli. I stop.
“Get me one lead,” I tell Adam. “One. Then we cut it.”
Adam hesitates, then says, “Alright.”
An hour later he calls back.
“Airport,” he says. “Yesterday. One way ticket. Her name.”
“Where,” I ask.
“Bay Area,” he replies.
My grip tightens. “Anything else.”
“Rideshare receipt to the airport,” Adam adds. “From her email.”
I close my eyes and press my tongue to my teeth, holding myself in place. I want to get on a plane right now, but I also know thatchasing a woman who ran because she felt trapped is how you prove she was right.
“Anything else?” I ask.
Adam’s voice drops. “She listed you as an emergency contact on a medical portal two weeks ago.”
My stomach turns again. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe paperwork. Maybe she didn’t have anyone else.”
I sit there with that, because it’s a kind of intimacy. Not sex. Not a bed. A box on a form that says: if I go down, call him. I send one message to Lila and I make it clean.
Me: I know you left. I won’t follow. If you want help, I’m here.
Then I stop.
I don’t call again, and I don’t go to the airport. I let the silence stand because consent has to matter even when it hurts.
I try to keep my hands from reaching for her by exhausting my body instead.
I go to the gym at midnight and I hit the heavy bag until my wrists ache, then I sit on the bench and wrap fresh tape with slow, careful pulls. I’m not trying to punish myself. I’m trying to keep the urge to chase from turning into action. Adam meets me once, looks at my knuckles, and says, “You’re going to break your hands.”
“I can afford new hands,” I tell him.
“You can’t afford new judgment,” he replies, and he’s right.
I ask him, once, “If you were her, would you trust me.”
Adam wipes sweat off his neck with his towel. “I’d trust your intent,” he says. “I wouldn’t trust your methods.”
That answer sits in my chest for days.
