The minute I stepped off the treadmill, I knew something was wrong.
Riley had been off all session. Her voice steady, her hands precise, her smile—forced. Like it took everything in her not to fall apart. And yeah, we joked. I pushed her buttons. She rolled her eyes like she always did.
But something was missing.
After she walked out, I didn’t follow. Didn’t say anything. I just sat there, staring at the mat like it held answers.
It didn’t.
I showered, threw on a hoodie, and called the one person who’d tell me the truth without sugarcoating it.
Raphina answered on the third ring.
“Yo,” he said, voice scratchy, background noise like he was walking through traffic. “You alive, or am I getting summoned to your funeral?”
“I think I just got dumped,” I said, sinking onto the bench outside the facility.
There was a pause. “You and Riley were even official?”
“No,” I said quietly. “That’s the worst part.”
I heard him sigh. “Alright. Give it to me.”
“She told me she’s leaving,” I said. “London. Two weeks. Taking the research position.”
Raphina let out a slow whistle. “Damn.”
“Yeah.”
“You tell her about the clinic sketch?” he asked.
“I gave it to her last night.”
“And?”
“She didn’t say anything,” I said, staring at the pavement. “Not then. Not until today. She walked in like nothing happened, ran the session like a machine, and then—just dropped it. ‘I’m going to London.’ Like it was a weather update.”
“Lucas,” he said carefully. “You know she’s been fighting for you this whole time, right?”
“I know.”
“Then why are you still sitting here?”
I looked down at my hands. “Because what if I’m the thing that keeps her from the one shot she’s been waiting for her whole life?”
Raphina was quiet again. Then: “Or what if you’re the thing she wants more than the shot—and she’s too scared to say it?”
I didn’t answer.
Back at my apartment, the sketch she hadn’t mentioned was still saved on my phone. The digital copy. The one with her name just beneath mine.
It looked like the future.
A real one.
I set the phone down and reached for my notebook. The same kind I used in high school. Pages full of drills, notes, doodles.
And at the back, that old sketch.
The first one we ever made—me drawing crooked lines, her fixing the curve of the R in “Riley Morgan.” We’d talked about running a place together one day. A clinic. Something better. Something human.
Now she had a shot to be something bigger—without me.
I stared at that sketch until my eyes blurred.