A chuckle rippled like cheap champagne. The haunted mansion, someone snickered, crumbling relic. Another muttered.
Claire didn’t look up, just flipped a strand of hair back as if the word ruins were beneath her skincare routine. She set the pen down with a little tap that sounded, to Marcus, like a lock clicking. He breathed in slow, out slower.
This is where a lesser man breaks. He didn’t. He let the humiliation wash over him, like cold rain you don’t bother to dodge.
He’d known pain that didn’t trend, grief that didn’t get hashtags. He swallowed, shifted his weight, a micro-movement, nothing dramatic, just a choice not to fold. Yo, you think he’s done? The whisper trailed him to the corridor.
Looks done to me. Another reply, softer, almost sympathetic. He used to help folks’ kids with scholarships, remember? Life’s wild.
Marcus adjusted Jasmine’s backpack strap on her shoulder and guided her toward the exit. The hallway smelled like toner and old coffee. Cameras blinked red.
A security guard scratched his jaw, eyes lingering a second too long. Claire’s laughter drifted behind him, short, airy, rehearsed. The kind of laugh you use when you’re sure the world belongs to you.
Outside, the wind sliced through his suit and rattled the leaves in a row of planters that never looked alive. Traffic hissed. A delivery truck beeped as it crawled backward.
Jasmine’s breath drew white in the air. He bent just enough to meet her eyes. We’re okay, he said, barely more than a breath.
Not a promise, an instruction to his own pulse. On the curb, two interns in cheap suits compared notes. She took everything, once said, left him with that dead house.
The other shrugged. That’s all he deserves, I heard her say. A beat.
Man, that’s cold. Marcus turned his gaze toward the city’s steel edges, then passed them. To a hill you couldn’t see from here.
Millstone. A place everyone had decided was finished. He let the thought sit, heavy and steady.
He rolled his cuff, exposing the thin line of a watch he’d kept since his first contract. Tick. Tick.
Now defeat tempo. He flagged a cab with two fingers, sufficient. The door handle felt colder than the air…
Обсуждение закрыто.