“She exists.”
“She also vanished three months ago.”
The words hit like a bruise.
Ninety-three days.
No messages.
No voice chats.
No late-night gaming invites.
Nothing.
The silence shouldn’t bother me this much.
Except she’s been part of my life for almost a decade.
Every major moment somehow traces back to her.
Product launches.
Panic attacks.
Three a.m. coding spirals.
The night I almost sold the company.
She was there for all of it.
And then suddenly…gone.
A loud pounding rattles the glass office doors.
Dara winces. “Looks like they’re looking for you.”
The doors fly open before I answer.
Parker strides inside wearing gray sweats and a backward Armadillos cap while Annika follows behind him carrying two coffees and significantly more patience.
“You were supposed to be at Dad’s an hour ago,” Parker says. “And you won’t answer your phone.”
“I was busy.”
Parker looks around the silent office. “Doing what? Plotting world domination?”
“Already did that,” Annika says mildly.
I like Annika. Mostly because she doesn’t fill silence just to escape it.
Parker points at the headphones hanging around my neck. “You’ve had those on all day, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You know normal people would text and say they can’t make it instead of pretending they can’t hear the phone ringing.”
“The headphones are noise-canceling.”
