The phone vibrated against my nightstand at 6:23 AM.
Still dark outside. The apartnt was quiet except for the faint sound of Mrs. Delgado’s television filtering through the walls. I’d gotten maybe four hours of sleep after Iris finally let crash around two. My eyes felt like soone had replaced them with sandpaper.
I grabbed the phone without opening my eyes. Probably Felix with so ergency about finding the perfect tie for the festival. Or Vivienne with another seventeen-point agenda for the day. Or Harlow asking if I’d seen a video of a cat doing sothing objectively unremarkable but sohow deeply important to her worldview.
UNKNOWN NUMBER
The ssage preview made my stomach drop six floors.
hey. how are you doing?
My brain kicked into survival mode. The kind of hyperawareness that ca from growing up in Kensington where not knowing who was texting you could an walking into sothing bad. Soone had gotten my number. Through research. Through digging. Through whatever investigative bullshit Monchamp dia was running on and Cassidy.
I sat up. The couch springs groaned under my weight.
My fingers moved before my brain caught up.
who is this?
The response ca back in under ten seconds.
wow. so you don’t even save your own mother’s number?
I stared at the screen.
The words remained there. Black letters against white screen. Twenty pixels of text that had cost four hours of sleep I’d already lost. They didn’t move. Didn’t change. Didn’t beco sothing less than what they were.
Diana Angelo.
The woman who’d sent a text two months back about California and so man whose na I’d forgotten the mont I read it. Who’d walked out of our apartnt with three hundred dollars that was supposed to keep the lights on if sothing went wrong. Who’d decided her children were old enough to handle themselves because I’d been handling things since I was ten anyway. Who’d left while I was at work and Iris was at school so she wouldn’t have to see our faces when we realized she wasn’t coming back.
That particular human being.
The one who hadn’t sent another ssage since that day. Hadn’t dialed either of our numbers to confirm we were still breathing. Hadn’t wondered if Iris was doing her howork or if I’d figured out how to stretch my last paycheck far enough to cover groceries and rent and the gas bill that ca in higher than expected because winter didn’t care that we were two people short in the apartnt now.
My hand reached out without consulting my brain first. The phone went face down against the coffee table surface. The screen made contact with fake wood grain that cost thirty dollars at a thrift store three years ago.
Left it there.
I walked to the bathroom and turned on the shower. The water would run cold for fifteen minutes before the heater kicked in. I had twelve.
The phone buzzed twice while I was in there.
I left it on the counter.
The drive to Hartwell stretched longer than normal despite the Benz making the actual distance shorter.
Manhattan morning traffic didn’t care what you drove. Cabs still cut you off. Horns still echoed between buildings like urban war drums. The sun hadn’t co up yet. Just that flat gray light that made the whole city look like soone had turned down the saturation slider on reality.
My phone sat in the cupholder.
Silent.
I’d checked it once after getting dressed. Three total ssages from Unknown Number. The notification badges glowed red against the lock screen. I hadn’t opened any of them. Didn’t need to. The first one told everything I needed to know about where this conversation would go.
My grip on the steering wheel was tighter than it needed to be. The leather felt cold even after ten minutes of holding it.
There should’ve been sothing happening inside my chest right now. So kind of reaction to the woman who gave birth to deciding two months of radio silence was long enough. Anger would make sense. Or hurt. The raw kind that makes people do stupid dramatic things in movies.
What I got instead was emptiness.
Like soone had scooped out my insides and forgot to put anything back.
Maybe that was worse. To feel nothing at all. No anger at the intrusion, no pain from the reminder of abandonnt. Just this void where stronger emotions should’ve been sitting.
The parking lot at Hartwell was already filling up by the ti I pulled in at 7:41. A Porsche three spaces down from . A Range Rover taking up two spots because apparently money bought you the right to be an asshole about parking. A Tesla that probably cost more than my entire existence up until three weeks ago.
I parked. Killed the engine. Sat there staring at the dashboard for thirty seconds without moving.
My phone buzzed again.
I turned it face down on the passenger seat without looking at the screen.
Felix found at my locker before horoom.
"Dude."
I didn’t respond right away. Just grabbed my calculus textbook from the top shelf and closed the locker harder than I ant to. The tal bang echoed down the hallway loud enough to make a few people glance over.
"Okay, so." Felix backed up half a step when I turned around. "Not to be dramatic or anything, but you look like you’re about to murder soone. Just putting that out there for the record."
"I’m fine."
"That’s what people say right before they snap and beco a true cri docuntary. You know that, right?"
I shouldered my bag and started walking toward horoom without another word. Felix fell into step beside after a second’s hesitation, which ant he’d decided to ignore all survival instincts in favor of being nosy.
"Did sothing happen?" he pressed after we’d made it halfway down the hall. "Because you’ve got this whole dark aura thing going on right now. Like, ani villain energy. The kind where the music gets all ominous. It’s unsettling."
"Nothing happened."
"Cool. Cool cool cool." He nodded several tis. "So when you say nothing, you an sothing definitely happened and you’re repressing it like a fucking champion."
I stopped walking mid-stride. Turned my head to look at Felix directly.
He actually flinched backward.
"Sorry," he said quickly. Both hands ca up in surrender. "Personal space acknowledged. I’m backing off now. Consider backed."
I stared at him for another few seconds.
"Felix."
"Yeah?"
"Drop it."
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