My new apartment had two chairs, one bed, and a window that looked out over gray water. I stood in the empty living room on my first night in Seattle and didn't buy a couch. I told myself I wanted to think about it. The truth was simpler — I didn't know yet what I liked. Three years of picking things Keaton wouldn't complain about had left me strangely blank. So I left the room empty and let it stay that way, one lamp glowing in the corner like a small, stubborn fact.
Monday morning, I walked into the Black Ventures partnership office with my badge still warm from the printer. My new team was waiting in a glass-walled conference room, and I felt them sizing me up before I'd even set down my bag.
"The Seattle transplant," said the man at the end of the table, not quite smiling. Marcus Webb, according to the folder I'd memorized on the plane. Senior project manager. Two missed deadlines in the last quarter, according to the file, and an expression that said he'd stopped caring who noticed.
"Amber Wright," I said, and sat down. "I read the launch timeline on the flight over. It's eleven weeks behind."
Someone at the table shifted. Marcus leaned back, arms crossed. "Twelve, actually. But sure, welcome."
"Twelve," I repeated, and didn't flinch. "I want individual meetings with each of you by Thursday. Bring me what's broken. Not what you think I want to hear."
"We've had three project leads in fourteen months," Marcus said. "Forgive me if I don't start rearranging my calendar for the fourth."
I held his gaze. It would have been easy, once, to soften that, to smile until the tension left the room. I didn't. "Fair," I said instead. "Prove me wrong by Friday."
He didn't answer, but something in his face flickered — surprise, maybe, that I hadn't begged for his approval.
By the end of the week I had the timeline gutted and rebuilt, roles reassigned to the people who actually had the skill for them, and a spreadsheet of everyone's strengths that I'd built at midnight because sleep wasn't coming easily in a city that didn't smell like Keaton's cologne. Marcus still watched me like I was a storm he was waiting to pass. I let him wait.
My phone buzzed on Wednesday with a text from Colin Shaw, a name I hadn't expected to see again. *Keaton's asking everyone where you are. Told him nothing. He doesn't believe you actually transferred.* Then, an hour later: *He went to your old apartment. Said it was completely empty. He stood outside afterward for like twenty minutes. It was weird, Amber.*
I read it twice, waiting to feel something. A twinge of guilt showed up instead of grief, small and unwelcome, gone as fast as it came. I typed back *thanks for telling me* and put the phone face-down on the counter.
I could picture it anyway — Keaton standing in those bare rooms, the sun coming through blinds I used to dust every Sunday, nothing left of me but outlets and dust and the ghost-shape where the couch had been. I wondered if he'd finally understood, in that emptiness, what he'd never once had to imagine before: a version of his life with no me in it.
Nia had been texting me all week about a therapist. *Just one session. If you hate her, I'll drop it forever.* I went mostly to make her stop asking.
Diana Lowe's office had a window and two plants that looked suspiciously well cared for. She had a legal pad and a way of looking at me like she already knew I'd come in armored.
"So," she said. "Tell me what you want. Not your job. Not your ex. You."
I opened my mouth, ready with something efficient — a five-year plan, a leadership title, the kind of answer that photographed well in a performance review. Nothing came.
"Take your time," Diana said, not unkindly.
I tried again. I thought about vacations I'd never taken because Keaton didn't like flying. Restaurants I'd never suggested because he had opinions about cuisine. Even my promotion — I'd wanted it once, hadn't I? Or had I only wanted him to notice I deserved it?
"I don't know," I finally said, and the words landed heavier than I expected, like admitting something illegal. "I don't actually know what I want. I know what he wanted. I got very good at that."
Diana wrote something down without looking smug about it. "That's actually useful information," she said. "Most people lie to me in this chair for weeks before they say that."
She tore a blank page from her pad and slid it across the desk. "Homework. Start a list. Decisions you've made that you're proud of. Doesn't matter how small."
I took the page home and set it on my empty counter, in my empty living room, in my apartment with the one stubborn lamp. It sat there for three days, blank, while I stared at it over coffee I always finished before it went cold.
On the fourth morning, I picked up a pen. *I signed the transfer papers myself,* I wrote. *I didn't ask anyone if it was okay.*
It wasn't much. But it was mine.
