Page 55 of Shattered

My arm was raised, I opened my mouth to call his name. Instead, I watched his car reach the corner. Then it disappeared.

The street swallowed him—buildings and traffic and the ordinary chaos of a Brooklyn afternoon. Like he’d never been there at all.

I lowered my arm slowly. My hand felt heavy. Everything felt heavy.

A woman walking a small terrier gave me a strange look as she passed. I probably looked unhinged—standing on thesidewalk, hand raised to nothing, staring at empty space where a car had been.

The street was quiet now. Just regular Brooklyn traffic. Cars passing without stopping. People walking without seeing. The world continuing like nothing had just happened.

Like Axel Irving hadn’t just told me he had feelings for me and then driven away because I couldn’t give him a reason to stay.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pulled it out with numb fingers. Jake’s name lit up the screen. He texted saying he’s thinking about me and that he was hoping that I was giving “us” a thought.

I stared at the message. Then at the empty corner. Then back at the message.

The woman with the terrier had crossed to the other side of the street, the dog’s leash pulled taut. Probably thought I was dangerous. Unstable.

She wasn’t wrong.

I turned and walked back inside. Each step felt like moving through water. I unlocked my apartment door with hands that wouldn’t quite steady.

The apartment was exactly the same as it had been ten minutes ago.

Same late afternoon light. Same quiet.

Except.

Axel’s laptop wasn’t on the kitchen table anymore. The space where it usually sat looked too clean. Too empty.

His coat wasn’t hanging by the door. Just the empty hook, brass catching the light.

His coffee mug wasn’t in the sink.

All the small ways he’d taken up space in my life had vanished. Carefully removed, like he’d never been here at all.

I sat on the couch. The couch that was too short for his frame. But he had managed it all because of me.

The apartment was too quiet.

Just me.

I pulled my knees up to my chest. Wrapped my arms around them. Thinking of the fact that I’d let the wrong person leave.

CHAPTER 13

Axel

Three days without Delia,and I’d apparently decided to make it everyone’s problem.

“No.” Mark stood in my office doorway at eleven p.m. on a Thursday, arms crossed. “Absolutely not.”

I didn’t look up from my laptop. “The Singapore projections need to be finalized by tomorrow.”

“The Singapore projections have been finalized. Twice. You rejected both versions for reasons that made absolutely no sense.”

“The data wasn’t comprehensive enough.”