Author's Preface
[Annie]
The metallic chime of the elevator fades, leaving the corridor in total silence.
I stay pressed against the wall, my chest rising and falling as the adrenaline slowly drains out of me, leaving a hollow, burning residue of embarrassment.
The quiet breaks with the soft click of a door handle turning nearby.
Kai steps out into the hallway, wearing grey sweatpants and a dark t-shirt, carrying a folded wire laundry basket filled with clothes.
He doesn't look up immediately, his thumb hooked on the handle, but as his door clicks shut behind him, his eyes lift to mine.
I freeze, my back still flat against the wall, my hand halfway through my hair.
He stops two paces short of his door.
His expression doesn't change—no sudden flicker of curiosity, no knowing smirk, no raised eyebrows.
He takes in my rigid posture and flushed face, shifting the basket slightly under his arm.
"Annie," he says softly.
He doesn't glance down at the spot on the carpet where Oliver was just on his knees.
"I'm just heading down," I say, smoothing the front of my shirt even though I have nowhere to go. "Just... getting some air."
Kai nods once, his eyes flicking toward the basement keycard tucked into the side of his laundry basket before looking down the hall. "The air in the stairwell is cooler than the hallway."
He turns and walks down the corridor toward the service elevator that leads down to the basement laundry room, his sneakers making faint, rhythmic squeaks against the runner.
I watch him round the corner until the service door swings shut behind him.
Standing alone in the quiet, I take a slow, deep breath, untying the knot in my stomach, before turning the handle to my apartment.
The foyer is bright when I step back inside.
Mom is standing by the dining table, folding a linen napkin over and over into tight, precise rectangles.
Her hands are trembling.
"Did he leave?" she asks, her voice low.
"Yes," I say, stepping into the room and pulling my phone out of my pocket.
"Annie..." She sets the napkin down, her throat working as she stares at her hands. "You think I'm just looking at his family's name. You think this is about keeping up appearances."
I pause, unlocking my screen.
"He has a job, Annie," she says softly, her voice dropping into a flat, quiet register. "He has structure. His family stays together.
You don't know what it feels like when everything falls apart halfway through your life, when you wake up and realize you trusted someone who couldn't hold up his end."
She swallows hard, looking up at my eyes. "I just don't want you floating around with nothing solid underneath you."
The anger in my chest dulls into a heavy, quiet ache.
"I know, Mom," I say softly. "I know why you want it for me."
I open my contacts right under her gaze.
After I blocked Oliver at the estate, I had unblocked him in a moment of hesitation before the trip, terrified of what his silence meant—and that open door was what brought him straight to our hallway tonight.
I find his profile, tap Block Contact, and select the confirmation prompt without hesitation.
I set the phone face-down on the table between us.
Mom looks at the phone, then back at me.
She doesn't say anything else.
She slowly pulls out a dining chair and sits down, looking out the living room window at the darkening sky.
[ *** ]
Later that night, long after the apartment has gone dark, I pull on a sweater and step out into the hallway, taking the service stairs down to the ground floor.
The small courtyard behind the building is cool and damp with night air.
I walk out onto the concrete pad near the side gate, listening to the distant hum of city traffic beyond the brick wall.
A faint amber light glows near the shadows by the utility shed.
Kai is standing near the low wall, an elbow resting on the brickwork, a slim cigarette held loosely between two fingers.
He isn't wearing a jacket against the night chill.
He turns his head slightly as my footsteps crunch on the gravel, taking a slow drag before exhaling a thin stream of smoke into the dark.
"Couldn't sleep?" he asks, his voice gravelly in the quiet.
"Not really," I say, stepping closer and leaning back against the low wall beside him. I glance at the ember in his hand, then up at his profile. "Since when do you smoke? I never took you for a smoker."
Kai looks down at the cigarette, a faint, wry curve appearing at the corner of his mouth. "Not a habit. Just occasionally when I've been working too long."
"You never smoked back on campus," I remark, tilting my head slightly. "Though I guess we didn't overlap for very long."
"Just that one year," Kai says, looking out toward the alley.
"I remember," I say softly. "I was in my second year, and Henry practically begged me to tutor you when you first joined. He insisted you were brilliant but needed someone to keep you on track.
I used to see you sitting by the back window of the business library during your first term, completely ignoring the introductory reading lists and working through second-year valuation models instead."
"You were paying attention to what I did behind the library stacks?" he asks, his tone dry, though there's a subtle glint of amusement in his eyes.
"Hard not to," I say with a faint smile. "I spent half that first semester making sure you actually turned in your strategic management assignments. But then... right before the second-semester finals rolled around, you just vanished without a word."
Kai flicks a bit of ash into the sand bucket, his eyes remaining fixed on the dark brick wall. "I had reasons to leave."
"You could have told someone," I press gently, dropping my voice a fraction. "Why did you just drop out like that? You didn't even say anything to Henry, and he had taken you under his wing as his junior."
At the sound of Henry's name, I see Kai visibly freeze.
It’s subtle—a brief pause in his breathing, his fingers tightening just a fraction around his cigarette—but I notice it immediately.
The quiet calm around him sharpens into something guarded and cold before he slowly relaxes.
I notice the shift, but I don't force him.
"Henry had no idea why you dropped out either," I add softly, looking out toward the courtyard gate. "He was completely off for the rest of the semester after you left. Honestly... I think he was genuinely hurt by how you vanished."
He lets out a low, dry chuckle, shaking his head slightly. "Henry was always a bit dramatic about team dynamics. Things just came up back home—family matters, timing. Nothing complicated."
He dismisses it so smoothly, but the vagueness of his answer only makes the silence between us feel heavier.
He takes one final drag, drops the butt into the metal sand bucket, and crushes it out with the sole of his shoe.
"My clothes are probably done in the dryer by now," Kai says, his tone shifting back to that steady, unreadable calm. He turns to look at me, his eyes dark in the low light. "Get some sleep, Annie. We have work tomorrow."
"Goodnight, Kai," I say.
"Goodnight." He turns and walks back toward the rear entrance, the heavy door clicking shut behind him.
I stay in the courtyard alone, watching the space where he stood.
A cold breeze slips through the side gate, carrying that subtle, unresolved tension with it.
The way Kai froze at Henry's name... the guarded chill that passed over him before he brushed it off as family matters…
Looking up at the dark windows of the building, I wonder if Henry really was as clueless as he claimed back then, or if he secretly knew the real reason Kai had walked away.
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