Monday arrived like a sentence.
Talia woke up before her alarm, but this time it wasn't the good kind of anxiety that got her out of bed. It was the other kind—the one that weighed on her chest and made her body want to stay curled up, far from everything. Spike slept beside her, breathing softly, and for a moment she thought about calling work and saying she was sick.
She didn't. She got up, showered, got dressed, and tied back her hair. Every movement was mechanical, as if her body knew the way even when her mind wanted to go somewhere else.
In the bathroom mirror, she looked at her own face and tried to find the fifteen-year-old girl she'd been. She didn't. But she felt her. Felt her there, behind her eyes, waiting, the way she'd always waited.
“You're not coming back,” she told her reflection. “I won't let you.”
The JK building was the same. The same glass, the same steel, the same front desk with its professional smile. But Talia entered it differently. She walked with her shoulders stiffer, her chin held higher, as if every step were a conscious decision not to fall apart.
She reached the finance department and went straight to her desk. Turned on her computer. Opened the spreadsheet. Didn't look around.
“Good morning!” Sofia appeared with two coffees and her usual smile. “Survive the weekend?”
“I survived,” Talia said, accepting the coffee without lifting her eyes from the screen.
Sofia stood there a second longer than usual. Tilted her head.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine. Just tired.”
Sofia didn't push. But Talia felt her gaze linger before she walked away.
The morning passed in numbers and emails. Talia worked with an almost aggressive concentration, as if every cell in the spreadsheet were a brick she was stacking between herself and the rest of the world. She didn't go to the break room. Didn't get up to stretch her legs. Didn't join the conversation about the weekend's game that had energized the entire department.
At eleven forty, she heard footsteps in the hallway. Not Sofia's hurried steps, or the intern's dragging ones. These were calm, measured steps—the kind she already knew.
She didn't look up.
The footsteps stopped at the entrance to the department. Talia felt his gaze before she saw him—that silent weight only he carried, as if the air around him grew denser whenever he was near.
She kept typing. Her fingers struck the keys with a firmness she didn't feel inside.
Three seconds. Five. Ten.
The footsteps started again and moved away.
Talia let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Her hands trembled over the keyboard. She closed her eyes for a moment and saw, unwillingly, the pizza box, the smell of cheese, the comfortable silence. And then, like a clean cut, the table at the back of the nightclub, the three men together, the laughter echoing from fifteen years ago.
She opened her eyes and went back to typing.
At lunch, Sofia sat across from her in the cafeteria and stayed silent for almost an entire minute—a record, for her.
“Talia.”
“Hmm.”
“Did something happen Friday? After the nightclub?”
Talia chewed slowly. Swallowed.
“No. I just left early because I got tired.”
Sofia turned her fork between her fingers, studying Talia's face.
“Okay. If you say so.”
“I do.”
Sofia opened her mouth, closed it, then smiled—a smaller, more careful smile than usual.
“Okay. But if you need to talk, I'm here. Even if it's about nothing.”
Talia nodded. She felt a knot in her throat that had nothing to do with the food.
The afternoon followed the same pattern. Work, silence, efficiency. Talia left at exactly six, with no overtime and without looking back. She rode down the elevator alone. At the security desk, she passed through quickly. On the sidewalk, she breathed in the cold air and felt her chest tighten.
The cab ride took twelve minutes. Talia spent all twelve staring out the window without seeing anything.
At home, Spike greeted her with his usual celebration, but she didn't crouch down to play. She went straight to the couch, sat down, and stared at the wall.
The entire week went on that way.
Tuesday: work, silence, home. Wednesday: work, silence, home. Thursday: Jash passed through the department again. Talia didn't look up. He stopped for two seconds longer than he had on Monday. Then he left.
On Friday, Sofia cornered her in the break room.
“One week,” Sofia said, crossing her arms. “An entire week without you laughing even once. Not even at that awful meme Marcos sent to the group chat. Everyone laughed. You didn't even open it.”
“I didn't see it.”
“You saw it. I was standing next to you when the notification popped up. You looked at it and closed it.”
Talia slowly filled her glass with water.
“Sofia, I'm fine. Seriously. I'm just focused on work.”
Sofia looked at her for a long moment. Then she sighed.
“Okay. But I'm going to keep asking. Every day. Until you tell me or until I die. Whichever comes first.”
Talia almost smiled. Almost.
That night, lying in bed with Spike curled around her feet, she picked up her phone and opened her conversation with Clara. She typed: “I need to tell you something.” She stared at the words for thirty seconds. Then deleted them.
She wasn't ready. Not yet.
But the wall she'd built throughout the week—that wall of silence and efficiency and eyes that never looked up—already had a crack. And the crack was shaped exactly like a pizza box and a deep voice saying, “Don't stay too late.”
She turned on her side and closed her eyes.
The problem wasn't hating Jash. The problem was that she couldn't.