“How else would I see you?” Jerry asked, and the grief rose again like a tide. “I attended meetings with a dead heart for one week. I haven’t slept. I’ve been going to the morgue like a madman, asking attendants to open the drawer again and again because I kept thinking maybe they made a mistake.”
Mirabel squeezed her eyes shut. A tear escaped.
Jerry leaned closer, voice rising without permission.
“Then today I come to the market to buy groceries like a normal man, trying to pretend life can still move forward, and I see you standing there like nothing happened.”
He looked away and pressed his palm against his forehead.
He was a billionaire, yes. He owned a glass office building in Victoria Island. People called him “sir” with fear. He controlled boardrooms and budgets and reputations.
But right now he felt like a lost boy who had misplaced the only thing that made home feel like home.
“Mirabel,” he whispered. “Please tell me I’m not dreaming.”
She turned her face to the window, wiping tears quickly like she was ashamed to be seen breaking.
“I’m not dead,” she said.
Jerry laughed once, sharp and pained.
“Then who is dead?” he asked. “Because there is a body in the morgue and everyone says it’s you.”
Mirabel’s jaw tightened.
Her eyes didn’t leave the passing streets.
