You're going to compartmentalize and schedule and organize your way through grief because the alternative is chaos and you hate chaos. He was right. He knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. We finished the pizza and the beers and watched a game neither of us cared about. And for a few hours, I felt almost normal, almost okay, almost like a person instead of a collection of wounds held together by spite and stubbornness.
When David left at 11:00, he hugged me at the door. Call me if you need anything, and I mean anything. Company, conversation, help burying a body, whatever. I'll be fine. I know you will.
But you don't have to be fine alone. After he left, I locked the door and walked through my empty house one more time, checked the locks on windows, turned off lights, did all the small rituals of ending a day. In the bathroom, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I looked older, tired, like someone who'd aged years and weeks. But I also looked different in a way I couldn't quite name.
Harder maybe, or clearer, like grief had burned away some softness I'd been carrying, leaving something more essential behind. I went to bed and actually slept. 6 hours of dreamless unconsciousness that felt like mercy. And when I woke Tuesday morning to more messages, more questions, more people wanting to know the story, I answered them all with the same methodical honesty because this was what I chosen. This path of radical truthtelling, of refusing to let Rachel's lie stand unchallenged.
And if it made me look vindictive or cruel or unforgiving, so be it. At least I could look at myself in the mirror and know I'd told the truth. At least I could live with who I was becoming. At least I could sleep at night. That had to be worth something.
Wednesday morning arrived cold and bright, the kind of November day that makes everything look crisp and unforgiving. I dressed in my best suit, the charcoal one I'd worn to job interviews and funerals, occasions that required gravidos, and drove to Cascade Tech headquarters downtown. The building was all glass and steel, aggressively modern, the kind of place that probably had a meditation room and kombucha on tap. I'd been here before to company parties where Rachel had introduced me to colleagues whose names I forgot immediately, where Marcus had shaken my hand and smiled and looked me in the eye while planning to betray me. Security directed me to the 14th floor.
Jennifer Ward's office overlooked the city floor to ceiling windows that made everything feel exposed. She stood when I entered. Mid-40s professional suit, the kind of face that gave nothing away. Mr. Rostine, thank you for coming.
She gestured to a chair across from her desk. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water? I'm fine, thank you.