Page 155 of Suite 7

Vera shifts beside me, still asleep. We’re at my place. Neither of us wanted to be alone last night.

I set the phone down carefully. Get out of bed without waking her.

The penthouse feels too big. Too quiet. My footsteps echo on the hardwood as I move to the kitchen.

Coffee. I can make coffee. That’s something I can control.

I go through the motions. Measure grounds. Pour water. Watch the machine hiss and drip.

My phone sits on the counter. Blank.

I don’t go to the office.

Can’t face the blueprints that won’t hold my attention or the pretense that anything is. I text my assistant: Working from home today. Cancel my meetings. Then I turn off my work phone.

Vera finds me on the couch an hour later. Laptop open but blank. Coffee cold in my hand.

“Hey,” she says softly.

“Hey.”

She curls up beside me. Doesn’t ask if I’m okay.

“Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“Will you?”

“Eventually.”

She takes the coffee cup from my hand. Disappears into the kitchen, returns with toast and scrambled eggs I didn’t hear her make.

“Eat,” she says.

I eat. The food is tasteless but I finish it anyway. When I’m done, she takes the plate. Comes back and settles against my side.

We sit like that for hours. TV on but neither of us watching. Just existing in the same space.

My phone stays silent.

Tuesday, I try to work. I close the laptop after twenty minutes.

Vera’s at her own place, client calls she couldn’t reschedule. Said she needed space. Needed to breathe air that wasn’t saturated with shared grief.

I miss her already. She left two hours ago.

But she’s the only one living in this hell with me. The only one who understands what it costs to sit still and wait when everything in you says move.

My phone sits on my desk, dark and silent. I pick it up. Scroll to Sloane’s contact.

Her profile picture is from last Christmas. Both of us at Mom’s house. She’s wearing that ridiculous sweater with the reindeer. I’m wearing the one she got me that says “World’s Okayest Brother.”

She’s laughing in the photo. Really laughing. Head thrown back. Eyes crinkled.

I almost hit call.

Give her space. Real time. At least a week.