Chapter 2
I stared at the screen for a long time after he hung up.
My mind was completely blank.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
How could he sound so calm?
How could he call missing eighteen emergency calls “some important stuff”?
I walked out of the hospital room on legs that felt like lead.
The sun was coming up outside, bright and cruel.
People passed by, going about their lives.
I felt like I was already dead.
I took a taxi home.
Every street looked different.
Everything that used to feel like ours now felt like a lie.
When I opened the front door, Mark was sitting on the couch, scrolling through his phone.
He didn’t even look up at first.
“Did you get my message?” he said. “I had a late meeting with investors—couldn’t step away.”
I stood in the entryway, still wearing the clothes I’d slept in.
My shoes were stained with hospital floor wax.
“Leo is gone,” I said.
My voice didn’t even sound like mine.
Mark froze.
He slowly lowered his phone.
“What?”
“Leo is dead,” I repeated. “He died at 2:47 this morning. While I called you eighteen times. While he asked for you.”
His face went pale.
He stood up fast, stumbling.
“Why didn’t you text? Why didn’t you say it was an emergency?”
I laughed. It came out sharp and broken.
“I called you. Eighteen times. That’s not enough of an emergency?”
“I told you—I was busy! I couldn’t look at my phone!”
“Busy with what?” I stepped closer. “What could possibly be more important than your dying son?”
He looked away.
“Business. You wouldn’t understand.”
That was the moment I knew something was very, very wrong.
There was no meeting.
May you like
No investors.
And he was hiding something big.
