I was awakened by the shrill buzz of my phone ringing—far too early or far too late, I couldn't tell anymore. I flailed for it blindly, knocking over something on the nightstand in the process. My heart jolted. Maybe from the sound. Maybe from the hope I hated still having.
I looked at the screen.
Not him. Of course not him.
But then I saw the name. Margo.
I blinked, frowned. That was... unexpected.
"Hello?" I answered, voice rough, throat dry.
"Heyy, you silly goose," she said.
I stared at the ceiling. "What's with that?"
"When are you planning on coming back to the office?"
I pushed the blanket off and swung my legs over the bed, making my way toward the kitchen. The sound of the TV was playing in the background—some rerun of a game show my grandmother had probably fallen asleep to. I opened the tap, filled a glass, drank just to buy myself time.
"Well, I don't know when," I finally muttered. "I don't feel well enough yet."
I didn't say I hadn't eaten much. Didn't say I couldn't sleep properly unless I exhausted myself to the point of collapse. Didn't say that every time I blinked, I saw his face in the back of my eyelids like an afterimage.
Margo's voice hummed back through the line. "There are a lot of your real clients asking about you."
Only the clients. Not him.
"Only the clients?" I said, trying to make it sound casual, but the words snagged on something sharp on their way out.
I walked into the living room, sighing at the sight of my grandmother curled up on the couch, the remote loosely held in her hand, the TV still droning on.
"Grandma, you fell asleep on the couch again," I said gently. "Go lay down inside. Your neck will cramp."
There was a small pause on Margo's end. Then, "Yeah… are you staying at your grandma's?"
"As if you don't know already," I replied, giving her a wry look she couldn't see. I moved closer to the couch, bending slightly.
"Grandma, get up. Come on. Let's get you to bed."
"I really didn't know," Margo said on the other end.
I ignored her. "Grandma?" I said again, louder this time.
No movement.
I frowned. She was a light sleeper. Even at eighty-four, she never missed a beat.
"Grandma," I repeated, nudging her shoulder lightly. Still nothing. "Grandma, wake up."
The TV laughed behind me, the studio audience cheering as someone apparently won a toaster or some crap. It felt wrong. Too loud. Too normal.
My fingers trembled as I reached out and touched her wrist. Still. Warm, but still.
"Margo…" My voice caught. "I have to go. I need to call an ambulance."
"Wait—Reed, do you need someone with you?" she asked quickly, her tone shifting, tightening.
"Uhm, no, no, I gotta go, bye."
I hung up before she could answer.
My fingers flew over the screen, misdialed once, cursed under my breath, then tried again.
999.
My heart thundered like it was trying to rip through my chest. Every breath felt shallow, like the air had turned to paste.
"Please," I whispered to no one, to everything. "Please just let her be okay."
-Rowan.
Margo came rushing through my office door like a storm had broken loose behind her. No knock. No lead-in. Just the hollow slam of wood and a breathless urgency that didn't belong in rooms like mine.
Her face was pale.
"I think there's something wrong with Reed's grandmother," she said, her voice too fast, too thin.
I straightened in my chair, instinctively setting the folder I was reviewing aside. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know." She shook her head, visibly rattled. "I was just checking on Reed, making sure he hadn't locked himself in a closet or started knitting anti-love slogans, and then I heard it. He was calling for her—louder each time. She wasn't answering. Then he just hung up."
She stood there, arms braced against the edge of my desk like it was the only thing anchoring her. "I think you should go."
"No." My answer was immediate. Calm. Too calm. "If he needs me, he'll call. He was clear. It's better not to make any advances right now."
Margo's eyes widened, frustration tightening every feature. "Rowan, this is different. This isn't about the operation, or emotions, or whatever tangled drama you two stitched between kisses and paperwork. This is a crisis."
Her voice cracked. Just slightly. "When my father died… I really wanted someone to be there. Not to fix it. Not to talk. Just there. To know I didn't have to carry it all alone."
I watched her carefully. Margo wasn't the kind of person who spoke about her father. Or loss. Or anything that cracked the veneer of competence she wore like armor. But now? She looked like she'd been punched somewhere her logic couldn't reach.
I leaned forward slightly. "What makes you believe she died?"
"I don't know," she admitted, and the words broke open something raw. "I don't know. But the way he said her name—the way he dropped the phone—it felt wrong. It sounded like the world just slipped out from under him."
Margo. Rational. Tactical. Efficient.
And now pacing like a wire had snapped inside her.
I stood slowly and crossed the room, gesturing to the chair across from mine. "Sit," I said gently. "Breathe. You're spiraling."
She didn't sit. Just glared.
"She'll be fine," I told her. "He'll be fine."
"No," she snapped, her eyes sharp, suddenly glistening. "He won't. He has no one, Rowan."
I flinched, only slightly, but enough for her to notice. She pressed in.
"You know it's true. You left him. Not just emotionally. Physically. You've given him no safety net. Not even a false one."
"He asked me to respect his space," I said, voice lower now. Controlled. It was the only way I knew how to speak when things felt like they were spiraling.
But Margo wasn't having it.
"Rowan, we're thugs," she said, her voice rising. "We're professional liars. We wear tailored suits to bury bodies and call it networking. Since when did respect become part of your moral code?"
I opened my mouth—then closed it again.
She stared at me like she could see every excuse forming behind my eyes before I could shape it.
"You love him," she added, softer this time. "That's your excuse. So use it."
I stood there in silence, the walls suddenly too quiet. Her words hung heavy in the space between us—accusing, protective, impossibly true.
The image of Reed standing in that streetlight swam back up to the surface of my mind. His face—furious, trembling, shattered—as he told me to keep it professional. As he walked away like the sound of his own footsteps was the only thing keeping him from falling apart. That moment… that moment undid me more than any confession ever could have.
And now?
He might be losing the one person who had ever truly made him feel safe.
Maybe this wasn't about whether I was wanted. Maybe it was about whether I could live with staying away.
-Reed.
She's dead.
I keep saying it in my head, like maybe the words will start to mean something if I line them up enough times. Like maybe if I repeat them in the right rhythm, they'll crack open and bleed, and I'll finally feel something that doesn't taste like static in the back of my throat.
But they don't. They just sit there.
She's dead.
I'm standing in the hallway of the hospital, arms wrapped around myself in a poor imitation of comfort, hoodie sleeves too long and stretched at the cuffs, hands balled up in the pockets because I don't know what else to do with them. The floor is made of some kind of vinyl that reflects too much light, and the walls are that sterile, unnatural white meant to convince people that things here are under control. That healing is clinical. Predictable.
She's dead, and all I can think about is how the vending machine keeps making that soft humming sound, like it's trying to fill the silence I should be able to puncture.
The doctor's words float somewhere just behind my ears. Massive pulmonary infection.Possibly pneumonia.She was already too weak to fight it.
And then: "Do you have anyone who can help with the arrangements?" Followed by: "Would you like to discuss cremation?"
Cremation.
I think I nodded. I think I said something. Or maybe I didn't. Maybe I just stood there, mouth half open, blinking slowly like I was buffering. I don't know what I agreed to. All I remember is a pamphlet with pale blue skies and doves printed on it. Doves. Like someone thought slapping clip art onto a folded piece of paper would make death feel softer. More presentable.
She always hated birds.
I haven't cried.
Not when they covered her body. Not when they told me I could say goodbye before they moved her. Not when I was asked if I wanted to call someone.
I just stood there. Sat down once, then stood again. My legs couldn't decide what shape grief wanted from them.
She was on the couch. Head tilted to the side. One hand resting on her stomach. Her mouth was slightly parted, and I thought—I thought—she was asleep. I nudged her. Called her name three times, the third one sharper than I meant it. And when she didn't move, something in me just... emptied.
Even then, I didn't cry.
I wanted to. I wanted to scream. Wanted to grab a pillow and crush it against my face and sob until it broke me. But all I could do was stare at her hand. It was still. It wasn't supposed to be still.
She'd always had this unconscious twitch in her thumb when she was thinking, like she was flicking through memories. It wasn't moving anymore.
And now I'm here. In a hallway that smells like antiseptic and recycled air, while someone down the corridor tells another family that everything will be fine.
She's dead, and I'm standing here like an unfinished sentence.
I haven't cried. And I'm starting to wonder if that means I never will. Or if it just means the crying will come like an ambush—later, louder, meaner.
Either way, for now, it's just me.
Me, the humming vending machine, the whisper of a nurse's shoes against linoleum, and the echo of her voice in my memory saying "Your neck will cramp, darling. Go sleep in your bed."
But she's not here to say it anymore. And I didn't listen in time.
She died while I was right there. And I didn't even realize. I thought she was sleeping. I thought she was ignoring the TV again. I thought she was just tired.
She was tired. She was always tired lately.
I took my phone out of my pocket.
My fingers hovered over the screen for a moment too long, like they were waiting for permission. For an excuse not to do it. But I dialed anyway.
He picked up on the first ring.
"Hello, Rowan," I said, my voice flat—too flat. Like I'd scrubbed all the emotion out of it and was just left with the echo.
There was a pause. "Hey, Reed," he replied.
His voice carried something under it, almost invisible, but there. Not fear, not yet—but that kind of tension you only hear when someone is holding their breath without realizing.
"Can you come to the hospital?" I said. "I'll send you the location."
Silence for half a beat.
"What hospital, Reed? What happened?"
I swallowed, but my throat had gone dry, tight. The words clawed at the inside of my chest, but I let them come anyway.
"My grandmother is—she..." My breath stuttered. "She's dead."
And that's when it hit.
Like someone smashed a window from the inside. Like the grief had just been pacing behind my ribs, waiting for the moment I said it out loud.
An explosion of tears.
No warning. No ramp-up. Just sudden, jarring sobs—raw and alive and loud, like the body had finally decided to revolt. Like every cell had been waiting for me to stop pretending I was fine.
I turned my face away from the hallway, tucked my forehead against my arm, tried to breathe, but it all came out shattered. The phone was still pressed to my ear, and I could hear Rowan's voice, low and urgent, calling my name again.
"Reed—Reed, hey. I'm coming. I'm on my way right now, okay? Stay where you are."
I didn't respond. Couldn't. I was drowning in it.
It finally felt real. She was gone. And I was not okay.
I tried to calm myself down. Just for a moment. Just long enough to speak like a person again.
I wiped my face on my sleeve, fingers shaking, eyes stinging. My breath came in shallow pulls, uneven like the rhythm of a broken song. I opened my phone again, scrolled to her number, stared at the name for a second too long, then pressed call.
My mother didn't answer.
Not on the first ring. Not on the fifth. Not at all.
Of course she didn't.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to dial my aunt instead. Aunt Sammie. The saner of the two. The one who sent me birthday messages three days late but still remembered to send them.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Hey, Aunt Sammie. This is Reed."
"Hello, Reed," she said warmly, casually, as if it were any other day. "How's it going?"
I didn't ease into it. I didn't sugarcoat it or lace it with softness.
"Look, Grandma died about two hours ago," I said, my voice sounding too even, too empty in my own ears. "I'm still at the hospital. If you'd like to come and discuss the burial arrangements, you can. If you can't, it's fine—I'll handle it alone. I tried calling Mom but she didn't pick up. I just thought you should know. We're at Saint Michael Hospital."
And I hung up.
Just like that.
No room for questions. No breath left for condolences or small talk or how are you holding ups. I didn't have it in me to comfort anyone. Not today. Not over her. This grief belonged to me, and I wasn't ready to share it with anyone who had stopped showing up long before she stopped breathing.
I shoved the phone back into my pocket, walked three steps down the hall, and threw myself into one of those cold plastic chairs they have in hospital corridors—the kind that aren't meant for comfort, just for waiting.
And I sat there.
Just existing in this thick, unbearable silence, like I'd been dipped in concrete and left to dry.
This doesn't feel real.
Not in the abstract, poetic way people say when they lose someone. Not in the "I can't believe she's gone" sort of way. No—this felt unreal in the way that made everything around me seem ridiculous. Every sound, every overhead announcement, every doctor walking by pretending not to see me with red-rimmed eyes and hands clenched in my lap—it all felt fake.
This isn't just a gut-punch. It's the kind of impact that doesn't stop at the stomach—it travels. It spreads. It blooms like something poisonous, curling into my ribs, soaking into the spaces between my bones, setting up camp in the hollows behind my eyes. It's not sharp. It's not sudden. It's slow, relentless, like someone dropping ink into water and watching the entire glass go dark. It expands inside me.
It bleeds into everything. The way the chair feels beneath me. The way my hoodie sticks to the sweat at the back of my neck. The way my body feels too heavy for its own skeleton. Even the way light falls onto the tiles feels cruel, like the world forgot to dim itself out of respect.
It makes everything else feel so small. So stupidly, pathetically small.
Every old scar. Every heartbreak. Every betrayal that once felt like it was going to tear me apart—they all shrink. They fold in on themselves like old paper left in the rain. Every single hurt I've ever endured—every tear I cried over being left, ignored, cheated on, forgotten, not getting a job, my parents leaving me and finding their own lives— feels like noise compared to this silence.
Because this isn't someone walking out of my life. This isn't someone saying I need space or I'm not ready or we can still be friends.
This is someone never coming back.
There's no conversation to fix it. No apology. No healing arc. No dramatic reunion where everything clicks into place again.
She's not just gone—she's absent. In a way that rewrites the room she used to stand in. In a way that turns memory into a landmine.
And I don't know how to carry that. Not the weight. Not the finality. Not the silence.
Not on my own. Not yet.