Zachary’s POV
The days after Violet's departure feel like purgatory.
I move through meetings and reports and the careful architecture of corporate success while my mind replays her exit on an endless loop. The word mistake, hanging in the air between us. The door closing with finality I can still hear. The silence that's followed ever since, stretching into a void I don't know how to cross.
"Zachary, the Peterson account needs your signature before three." Rebecca's voice pulls me back to the present, to the office I've been occupying without actually inhabiting.
"Leave it on my desk."
"It's been on your desk since yesterday." Her tone carries no judgment, just observation. "Along with the quarterly projections and the Henderson proposal."
I look at the stack of papers I've been ignoring and feel the weight of my own dysfunction. "I'll get to them."
"The Peterson deadline is in four hours."
"Then I'll get to them in three."
She nods and withdraws, and I'm grateful for her efficiency even as it makes my disorganization impossible to ignore. Rebecca has been with me three weeks now—hired when the workload expanded beyond what one person could navigate alone. She manages my calendar, intercepts calls, handles logistics with quiet competence that requires no emotional investment from either of us.
Her presence is professional and necessary, filling space that used to echo with emptiness.
I text Violet that first night. An apology that tries not to demand response, carefully worded to give her room while still saying something true: I shouldn't have asked you to move in. I understand why you left. I'm sorry.
The message delivers. The read receipt never comes.
The silence confirms what I already feared. I've ruined everything. Again. My inability to let things unfold naturally, to trust that she would stay without being asked, has cost me the only person who ever made me feel like something other than a machine built for productivity.
Wednesday's board meeting requires performance I barely manage. I present numbers that matter to people who matter, and somewhere in the middle of explaining third-quarter projections, my mind drifts to the way Violet looked in my sheets. The way she traced patterns on my chest in the dark. The way she said mistake like the word had been waiting in her mouth all along.
"Zachary?" Adison's voice cuts through my spiral. "The board is waiting for your recommendation."
I blink. Focus. Force my attention back to the room full of executives who expect competence from someone currently incapable of providing it.
"My recommendation is we proceed with the acquisition," I say, pulling the answer from somewhere I don't consciously remember storing it. "The risk profile is manageable and the growth potential justifies the investment."
The meeting continues. I contribute when required. No one seems to notice that half of me is somewhere else entirely.
Afterward, Rebecca intercepts me in the hallway with papers that need immediate attention and a look that suggests she's noticed more than she's saying.
"The Henderson signature is still pending," she says, matching my pace. "And you have a call with Tokyo in twenty minutes."
"Push Tokyo to tomorrow."
"I already pushed them from yesterday."
"Then push them again." I stop walking, suddenly exhausted by the weight of obligations I used to carry without effort. "Tell them I'm dealing with a personal matter."
Rebecca's expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind her eyes. "Is everything alright?"
"Fine." The lie tastes familiar.
"You've seemed distracted this week." She says it carefully, professionally, leaving space for me to accept or deflect the observation. "If there's anything I can do to help manage the workload—"
"There isn't." I soften the dismissal with something approaching honesty. "It's not about the workload."
She nods, accepting the boundary I've drawn. "I'll handle Tokyo. The Henderson papers will be on your desk when you're ready."
"Thank you, Rebecca."
She disappears down the hallway, and I stand there feeling the particular loneliness of being surrounded by people who depend on me while having no one I can depend on in return.
That night, I sit in my apartment with whiskey I don't taste and silence I can't escape. The space still smells faintly of Violet—her shampoo on the pillow I haven't washed, her perfume lingering in the bathroom where she got ready to leave me.
I draft a message. Delete it. The words feel wrong, either too much or not enough.
I miss you.
Delete.
I know you need space and I'm trying to give it to you.
Delete.
Please just tell me if this is over so I can stop hoping.
Delete. Too desperate. Too demanding. Exactly the kind of pressure that made her run in the first place.
I pour another drink and try again, stripping away everything except what I actually need her to know. Not explanations. Not promises. Just truth, offered without expectation.
I'm sorry I pushed. I understand if you need space. I just need you to know that what happened wasn't a mistake to me. It was everything.
I read it three times. Look for places where demand might be hiding beneath the words. Find none.
My thumb hovers over send.
The silence that will follow this message might be permanent. She might read it and feel nothing. Might delete it without responding, the way she deleted herself from my apartment and my immediate future. Might decide that everything we built was just another thing she needs to escape from.
I send it anyway.
The message delivers. The timestamp updates. The screen shows no indication that she's seen it, no dots suggesting she's typing a response.
I set my phone face-down on the coffee table and lean back into cushions that remember her weight. The apartment settles into quiet around me, and I prepare myself for silence that might stretch longer than I can bear.
She called us a mistake.
I called us everything.
One of us has to be wrong, and I'm not ready to accept that it might be me.