Page 98 of Glitched Play

Hope you’re okay.

That one is worse.

Because it sounds casual, and nothing about the ache beneath my ribs feels casual.

I delete that too.

The cursor blinks. Waiting for me.

She doesn’t owe me a goodbye.The realization is quiet and a little painful, knowing that the one person that understands me has disappeared from my life.

Rune didn’t leave today. She left months ago. I have simply been standing in the empty doorway, waiting for someone who may have already made peace with never coming back.

My chest tightens, and I close the laptop. An errant thought crosses my mind.

When one door closes, another one opens.

For the first time, I let the blank message remain blank.

eighteen

. . .

Witt

Letter 177 Glitch

The best teammates aren't always standing beside you.

Sometimes they're cheering from somewhere you'll never see.

The summit is inefficient.

Chicago is loud.

The hotel room smells like lemon cleaner and expensive fabric, and the mattress is too soft. I sleep badly, sit through six hours of presentations, answer eleven questions, reject two proposals, approve one pilot program, and speak to a man who says synergy seven times in under four minutes.

It’s Synatrix.

By the time the plane takes off for Austin the next evening, I am exhausted in a way sleep won’t fix.

I should be thinking about the launch.

Instead, my mind moves where it wants.

Maci standing in my office with pretzel dust on her fingers, explaining a problem everyone else missed.

Maci in an emerald dress, looking at me like I was not too much or too little, but simply there.

Maci at the arcade, arms around my neck, laughing because she beat me honestly.

Maci telling me I show love quietly.

I don’t know why that sentence has stayed with me.

I didn’t ask it to. Still, it has repeated inside my head at least thirty-seven times since pizza night.

You show it quietly.