“Good,” he says, already satisfied. “And bring Athena if she’s back from the Hamptons.”
The light changes. I start walking again. “Sure, Dad.”
“Proud of you,” he says and hangs up before I can answer.
I slide the phone into my pocket and keep walking, letting the city swallow me block by block until the gold-lit awning of my building finally comes into view.
“Evening, Mr. Paul,” Alfred says as I push into the lobby of my building. His tone is warm and familiar. He’s always been polite but never fake, which is exactly why I like him so much. He’s wearing the most doorman outfit there ever existed, but it suits him and his role just perfectly. The building where I live is as subtle as a slap in the face. Gold leaf trim, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, velvet benches no one ever sits on, and a chandelier so large it looks like it was brought in directly from Versailles in its own private jet. The ceiling is domed and hand-painted by an artist I should remember but don’t.
The residents love it. Take real pride in it. I once saw an older man with sparkling New Balance shoes give a ten-minute speech to a real estate agent about theoriginal plaster work.
I’ve lived here long enough to stop noticing the extravagance. But sometimes, when I come home late and the lobby is quiet like this, the opulence screams at me and makes me feel lonely.
“Hey, Alfred.” I give a tired half smile. “Cold tonight.”
“For summer? Absolutely,” he says, tapping something on his tablet. “The city doesn’t know what it wants lately.”
I chuckle lowly. “Tell me about it.”
“You’re later than usual today.”
I nod. “Meetings.”
He gives me a knowing look. “Long meetings make for short lives, you know.”
“I’ll quote you on that.”
The elevator dings before he can answer, and I step inside. The metal doors close, and I stare at my reflection for the brief ride up—crumpled collar, under-eye circles, a man who looks like he needs eighteen hours of uninterrupted sleep and possibly a new identity.
My apartment is quiet and dark.
Athena’s absence hums through it, not like an echo but a gap. A missing note. Her presence lives in the empty side of the bed, the untouched custom-made coffee mugs, the closet that’s now perfectly organized because she’s not around to wreak havoc with all her clothes strewn about.
She moved out seven months ago, and I still haven’t told anyone. It’s final this time—not like the other handful of times we’ve been apart for a few months and end up getting back together, that comfort in the familiarity of knowing someone.
Every time my mother calls, she asks if Athena’s coming to brunch next Sunday, and I stall. Say she’s busy or at the Hamptons’ house with her parents, which is much easier than saying that I ended it, explaining why, and then having to listen to my mother go on and on about the expectations they have from me, howeyes will be on you two soon, and maybe you can have Grammy’s ring whenever you’re ready to propose.
Her voice always drips with expectation, like she’s waiting for me to catch up to the life script she’s already written in her head. Husband. Father. Managing Director. In that exact order.
It’s not that Athena was awful. She wasn’t at all. She was ambitious. Polished. Of a good family. Everything I was raised to want and definitely fit into those expectations my parents—particularly my mother—droned on and on about.
But every time we talked about the future, I felt like I was standing on a ledge. And when I finally jumped—when I saidI can’t do this anymore—I thought I’d feel free. Instead, I landed in silence. In questions I couldn’t answer. In a body that stopped sleeping and a chest that wouldn’t loosen no matter what I did.
The night I went to the emergency department, I thought I was dying. Full-on chest tightness, blurred vision, hands going numb. I left the office at ten and collapsed on the sidewalk, not dramatically like in the movies—just slowly, knees buckling,breath clawing at my lungs. For a second, I swore this was it. That my body had decided it couldn’t keep running at the speed everyone else demanded of it.
I told the nurse I had no prior history and that I worked in investment banking, and she just nodded like that explained everything.
And maybe it did, and I was more of a stereotype than I wanted to admit, and the only thing missing from being a walking finance bro was actually using the word “bro”in conversation.
I open the fridge and grab a beer, then let the cold bottle rest against my forehead for a second before twisting the cap off. The invitation to Switzerland is still stuck to the fridge, printed on thick cream cardstock like it’s a royal event. Jack and Elle’s names are in bold script at the top—my cousin, the golden boy, marrying into money like expected and somehow still likable and down to earth. He invited me a year ago, back when I was technically with Athena. We were supposed to go together, and I think she expected I would propose during the trip because the hints started early on and kept coming. That part didn’t stick.
The pre-wedding trip is two weeks in a chalet somewhere near Lucerne. Hiking, boat rides, scenic trains. Jack’s friends are all investment bankers and start-up founders who grew up together. I’ll be the odd one out, which says something, considering I grew up adjacent to them.
The apartment smells faintly of cleaning products, which somehow makes it worse.
On the counter, my abandoned experiments sit like quiet accusations: the dead sourdough starter I forgot to feed, its surface collapsed in on itself; a stack of clean, unused recipe books from the month I thought cooking might fix me; the guitar propped in the counter with sheet music still clipped open to lesson two.
I keep thinking the right thing will spark something.Anything.
