It had been ten days since she last saw Jason.
Not that she was counting.
Not that she noticed how every morning, her thumb hovered over his name on her phone, before she stopped herself.
The silence had started small — a missed call here, a delayed reply there. But lately, it stretched into something that pressed against her chest, heavy and cold. It was the kind of quiet that wasn’t peaceful. It was the absence that knew your name.
She tried not to worry. Jason was busy — his empire always demanded more than time. Still, the thought slithered in now and then: when did being busy start sounding like goodbye?
That Tuesday morning, the city was already awake by the time she reached the gallery. Sunlight glanced off the glass towers, yellow cabs honking their impatience, coffee carts st
