Every night I cross the street before his doorway so I don't have to decide whether to speak. Tonight it was empty.
I keep his plate warm under a towel until his key hits the lock. Some nights now it's still full when I wake up.
Mid call, a text says the ceiling's leaking at home. I finish in my customer service voice and can't find my real one after.
A letter I've rewritten forty times, folded in my glovebox, taken out only at the gas pump. Tonight the handwriting didn't look like mine.
I went back for my charger and found someone else already settled into my old desk. I still check her status every night, like it's still my job.
The running app still logs her as my partner on this route, twelve times together. She muted me weeks ago. I laced up anyway.
At a friend's wedding after-party, I go looking for myself in the photographer's preview and find the same navy dress in every one this year.
My brother's telling his girlfriend it's just been him at the hospital this week. I've signed the visitor log every night too and say nothing.
I've started arriving at the gym five minutes early to stretch, or that's what I tell myself about the timing.
My brother's location has been frozen outside a bar for forty minutes and I still haven't called to check.
The old friend group's reunion poll closes in eleven minutes, and the diner we always picked isn't one of the options anymore.
At his goodbye drinks, I raise a glass to the coworker I trained for the job I wanted, and think about the folder I still haven't deleted.