Friday I woke up and checked my phone before I was fully awake.
Old habit. New context.
Nothing from him.
Not nothing unusual he didn't message every morning, there was no established pattern I could point to. But something had shifted and I felt its absence the way you felt a change in air pressure before you understood the weather.
I put the phone face-down. Made coffee. Stood at the window.
Checked the phone again at seven forty.
Still nothing.
Which was fine. Which was his right. Which was, I reminded myself, exactly the space I had spent months asking for.
I drank the coffee and got dressed and went to work.
The office was normal. The day was normal. Two calls before ten, the Henderson file finally moving toward resolution, Marcus with a question about the Q4 handover that I
