I slept for three days.
I know that because when I finally opened my eyes, the light through the floor-to-ceiling windows was the same pale gold as when I'd closed them—but the city below had cycled through its rhythms three full times without me. Morning. Night. Morning again.
I didn't dream. I just disappeared for a while, and some quiet part of me was grateful for it.
The penthouse was still when I finally got up. My feet found the floor. Someone had left a glass of water on the nightstand and a folded gray sweater on the chair by the window. Not my sweater. It smelled clean. I put it on anyway.
I moved through the hallway slowly, trailing one hand along the wall. The apartment was enormous and spare—no clutter, no decorative noise, just clean lines and floor-to-ceiling glass and the Hudson glittering thirty stories below like it had somewhere important to be.
I found the studio by accident.
A door I'd assumed was a closet. I pushed it open and stood there in the frame for a long moment, not moving.
It was a full room. Acoustic panels on the walls. A mixing board along one side. A standing lamp in the corner throwing warm light. And in the center, a Yamaha upright—the U1, the exact model I'd been using since I was nineteen—positioned under a window that looked out over the water.
On the piano bench: a stack of staff paper. The heavy kind, ninety-pound weight, the kind that doesn't buckle when pencil presses hard into it.
I walked in slowly. I picked up one sheet. Ran my thumb along the edge.
My throat tightened.
"I had the space."
Mael's voice came from the doorway. I turned. He was leaning against the frame with a coffee mug in one hand, dressed simply—dark shirt, no tie—watching me with an expression that gave nothing away. He didn't meet my eyes when he said it. He looked at the piano instead.
I set the paper down carefully. "This isn't a space you just had."
He didn't answer. He just pushed off the doorframe and walked toward the kitchen, and after a moment, I followed.
---
He made eggs. Simple, no ceremony. I sat at the kitchen island and watched him move and tried to remember the last time someone had cooked for me without wanting something in return.
We ate without talking. The city hummed thirty floors below us. My coffee was hot and the eggs were good and my cheek had faded from burning to a dull, distant ache.
Then he set down his fork.
"Three years ago," he said, "I heard a demo at an industry mixer. No production. Just voice and piano." He paused. "I spent two weeks tracking down who made it. When I found out, I reached out."
I looked up.
His eyes were steady. "I never heard back."
The kitchen was very quiet.
I knew. Before he finished the sentence, some part of me already knew. The knowledge settled into my chest like something cold and heavy, finding the exact shape of the space that had always been hollow there.
Damien.
Of course it was Damien.
I set my cup down. I stared at the counter. The marble was pale gray with thin white veins running through it, and I traced one with my eyes from one end to the other because I needed somewhere to look that wasn't Mael's face.
Three years ago. I would have been twenty-six. Still believing. Still writing his name into every song I finished, still thinking love was supposed to cost that much.
If I had gotten that message—
I pressed my fingers flat against the counter.
If I had gotten that message, I would have had three more years. Three years of my own name, my own work, my own voice going somewhere that wasn't his pocket. Three years I could have been building something that was mine.
He took them. He read that message and he made a choice and he took three years from me like it was nothing. Like I was inventory.
I sat with that for a long time. Mael didn't rush me. He just waited, the way I was beginning to understand he waited for most things—with a patience that didn't feel passive. It felt deliberate. Like a choice he made every single morning.
"How long have you known?" My voice came out steady. I was surprised.
"Long enough," he said quietly. "That I should have tried harder to find you."
I finally looked at him. There was something in his expression I couldn't name yet—not guilt exactly. Something older than guilt. Something that had been sitting with him for a while.
I picked up my coffee cup. My hands were steady.
"I'm going to need that studio," I said.
The corner of his mouth moved. Just barely.
"I know," he said.
