Chapter 3

The week after his birthday, Zeke's life settled into something like a stagnant, glassy pond.

He went to work, came home, slept in the study, and kept up the strange arrangement he and Nikki had fallen into: living under the same roof while looking straight through each other.

Nikki had tried a few times to bridge the gap, cutting up fruit, brewing tea, even leaving a pair of movie tickets on the coffee table. Zeke met every attempt with a flat "no thanks," or simply ignored her outright.

The pale blue birthday shirt had been pushed to the very back of the closet, buried among clothes he no longer wore.

Wednesday afternoon, the office had a livelier energy than usual. A few of the younger guys from the technical department were huddled together, plotting something, muffled laughter slipping out now and then.

Zeke had his headphones on, reviewing a data report on a new sample submission, when someone knocked lightly on the wall of his cubicle.

He looked up before pulling off his headphones. It was Scarlett Pomers. The twenty-four-year-old technical assistant wore her hair in a crisp ponytail and a bright smile.

"Zeke, you got plans after work? Our department's throwing a welcome dinner for the new hire at that place on the street behind the office, Magnolia House. Tammy's coming too, you should join us."

Zeke wanted to say no. He wasn't in any state for a crowd right now; all he wanted was to be alone.

But Scarlett seemed to read his mind and pressed on before he could answer. "Everybody's going, just think of it as a chance to unwind. You've looked pretty worn out lately."

With it framed that way, turning her down would have made him look standoffish. Zeke checked the clock in the corner of his screen: 4:20. He'd more or less wrapped up his work for the day. He gave a small nod. "Sure."

"It's settled then, six-thirty, the private room upstairs at Magnolia House!" Scarlett's eyes crinkled with her smile, and her ponytail bounced as she turned to go.

Watching her walk away, Zeke suddenly remembered that Nikki used to wear her hair the same way, a high ponytail swinging with every step. Nikki's hair had been a bit longer, though, with a slight curl at the ends, and from behind she'd always reminded him of a lively young deer.

He pulled his gaze back to the screen. The numbers and curves in front of him seemed simpler than people; at least they followed clear formulas and predictable patterns.

At six-twenty-five, Zeke shut down his computer, grabbed his jacket, and headed out.

He ran into Tammy Carell in the hallway. The twenty-five-year-old administrative supervisor was dressed today in a cream-colored knit sweater and light gray slacks, an air of gentle competence about her. She had a folder tucked under one arm, and when she saw Zeke, she gave a small nod.

"Zeke, heading to dinner too?"

"Yeah," Zeke said, slowing his pace to walk beside her.

They had the elevator to themselves. Tammy pressed the floor button, then glanced over at him, her voice quiet. "I read through that report on last week's off-site project. Your data was very clearly organized. Good work."

"Just doing my job," Zeke said.

The elevator descended. Tammy was silent for a few seconds before speaking again.

"The company's been considering expanding into the neighboring city lately. They may need someone out there regularly for technical support. If you're interested, it might be worth preparing for."

The suggestion was gently phrased, but Zeke understood what she meant. Tammy was offering him a chance to get away from this city for a while. Maybe she'd heard something, or maybe she'd simply noticed he wasn't doing well.

"Thank you, Tammy. I'll think about it," he said.

The elevator doors opened. They walked out of the building one after the other, an early autumn chill riding the evening breeze.

The restaurant wasn't far, seven or eight minutes on foot. Magnolia House was an old establishment, the red paint on its sign a little worn, but business inside was always brisk.

The private room upstairs was already full, seven or eight coworkers gathered around the round table, drinks and snacks spread across it. Everyone called out greetings as Zeke and Tammy walked in.

The new hire, Tucker Dunne, was a shy young man who stood to pour juice for the two of them, his hands so nervous the juice nearly sloshed over the rim.

"Relax, Tucker, our department doesn't stand on ceremony," Scarlett said with a laugh, smoothing things over as she took the juice bottle from him. "Here, Tammy, sit here. Zeke, you're over here."

The seating fell into place naturally: Scarlett on Zeke's left, Tammy on his right, and across from him a handful of coworkers who liked to joke around.

The food arrived quickly.

"Come on, welcome to the team, Tucker!" someone raised a glass.

Glasses clinked with a bright, crisp sound. Zeke raised his too, filled with orange juice. He took a sip, the coolness traveling from his throat straight down to his stomach.

The mood at the table stayed lively. Coworkers traded stories about the project, complained about difficult clients, and swapped industry gossip.

Zeke mostly just listened, offering a brief response whenever a question came his way.

Scarlett was especially attentive, dropping food onto his plate every so often. "Zeke, try this. The smoked bacon with green beans is really good."

"Thanks, I've got it," Zeke said.

Tammy sat beside him, eating and talking little, but she always found the right moment to pick up a thread of conversation or steer it somewhere new. With her there, the table stayed lively without ever tipping into chaos.

Partway through the meal, someone knocked on the private room's door. A server wheeled in a small cart carrying an eight-inch fruit cream cake. White cream had been piped in a simple pattern, topped with a colorful arrangement of sliced fruit: strawberries, kiwi, dragon fruit, and...

Zeke’s gaze locked onto the mango-topped section of the cake.

His breath caught for an instant. His fingers curled without him meaning them to.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Scarlett clapped her hands and stood up. "I know it's technically Tucker's welcome party, but Zeke's birthday last week got ruined, so we're making up for it today! I ordered the cake myself, extra fruit, everyone dig in!"

The table broke into good-natured laughter, and someone started singing "Happy Birthday," badly off-key.

Tucker scratched his head, a little embarrassed. "Oh, so that's what this was about. I had no idea."

Zeke sat there, watching the cake with its "25" candle get wheeled to the center of the table. Someone lit the candle, and the flickering light played across every face, warm in a way that felt strangely unreal.

"Make a wish, Zeke!" Scarlett said, grinning.

Everyone turned to look at him. Zeke stared at the ring of candlelight, his mind blank for a moment.

A wish? What was there left to wish for? That time would rewind? That none of it had happened? That he could just stop caring?

He closed his eyes briefly, bowed his head for a symbolic two seconds, then blew out the candle.

Applause and cheering broke out. Scarlett picked up a plastic knife. "Okay, cake time! Tammy, you're good with a knife. Want to cut it?"

Tammy didn't decline. She took the knife and stood, her movements steady and precise, each cut landing neatly in the gaps between the fruit, trying to keep every slice even. When she reached the section with the mango, her hand paused for a moment.

Then Zeke watched her nudge the tip of the knife just slightly, easing the largest piece with the mango onto the edge of a plate, set a little apart from the rest.

She kept cutting, dividing up the mango-free portions and handing them out one by one. When it was finally Zeke's turn, the slice she handed him held only red strawberries and green kiwi. Not a trace of yellow anywhere.

Setting the plate down, Tammy leaned in slightly and said, in a voice pitched for only the two of them, "I remember you're allergic to mango. Don't touch that piece."

Zeke froze.

He looked up at her. She'd already moved on to cutting the last slice for Tucker, her profile soft in the warm light of the private room, as if the comment had been the most natural, offhand thing in the world.

But Zeke knew it wasn't.

Almost no one knew he was allergic to mango, aside from his family and Nikki. He was always careful at office dinners, never so much as touching anything with mango in it. How could Tammy possibly know?

"Thank you," he finally said, his voice coming out a little rough.

Tammy glanced over and smiled at him, said nothing more, and sat back down.

The cake was sweet, the cream a bit rich, but the fruit was fresh. The table filled with chatter and laughter, the conversation drifting from work toward weekend plans. Zeke took small bites, the sweetness registering on his tongue even as something inside him felt quietly jarred.

The lone piece of mango cake sat abandoned at the edge of the plate, a silent reminder of its own.

As the dinner wound down, Zeke's phone buzzed twice in his pocket. He hadn't planned on checking it, but it buzzed several more times in quick succession, like a string of back-to-back alerts.

He set down his spoon, wiped his hands on a napkin, and pulled out his phone.

A notification lit the screen, an update from the one contact he'd set to notify him of every post.

There was only one person on that list.

His finger hovered over the screen. He hesitated for a few seconds, then tapped it open. Nikki's social media had a new post, from three minutes ago.

A post of nine photos.

Zeke opened the first one. The background was a karaoke room, deep purple couches, garish neon trim glowing along the walls. The table was crowded with beer bottles, fruit platters, and an enormous cake box.

The second photo showed the cake pulled out. It was a mango mille crepe cake, at least twelve inches across, layer upon layer of pale yellow crepe and cream, the top piled with thick chunks of mango, golden and glistening under the spinning disco lights.

The third photo showed Tyler wearing a blue party hat, a smear of cream on his cheek, grinning bashfully at the camera. He had on a white hoodie today, which made him look even younger than he was.

The fourth photo showed Nikki standing next to Tyler, holding a lighter, in the middle of lighting the candles on the cake. Her face was turned, her lips curved up, her eyes catching the candlelight and shining.

In the fifth photo, the two of them had their eyes closed, making a wish together. Tyler's hands were pressed together, his expression serious. Nikki's eyes were shut too, but a smile still lingered at the corners of her mouth.

The sixth photo caught the moment they blew out the candles, the cream rippling faintly from the gust of air.

The seventh showed Tyler cutting the cake, Nikki beside him, holding the box steady.

The eighth was a close-up of Tyler eating, a huge spoonful shoveled into his mouth, cream smeared at the corner of his lips.

The ninth photo...

Zeke's finger stopped.

In the photo, a chunk of cream and mango smeared across Nikki's sleeve, and the pale cream-colored knit instantly bloomed with a jarring streak of yellow.

She'd reached out with her right hand and wiped the cream away with her fingers, her fingertips coming away sticky with pale yellow cream and bits of mango.

The photo had caught that exact second, her hand held up, smeared with mango, grinning at the camera without a shadow of hesitation on her face.

The caption read: [Happy birthday, Tyler! Here's to making it official soon!]

A dozen or so likes and comments had already piled up beneath it. Mutual friends had chimed in.

[Nikki's so good to Tyler!]

[I want a supervisor like that too, I'm jealous!]

[The boy's so handsome!]

Zeke's eyes stayed fixed on the photo of the mango-smeared hand, unable to look away.

His throat began to tighten, like something inside it was slowly cinching shut. His breathing grew difficult, and something churned in his chest.

He remembered last summer, when the office had gone on a team outing to a farm resort. He hadn't known there was mango in the fruit platter and had eaten a small piece.

Ten minutes later, his throat had started to itch, then to burn, and his breathing had grown quicker and quicker. He'd been rushed to the hospital, diagnosed with acute laryngeal edema. A little later, and he might have suffocated.

Nikki had been away on a training trip at the time. She'd raced back the moment she got the call. The first thing he saw when he woke up was her eyes, swollen from crying, and her cold hand gripping his, holding on for dear life.

"You scared me to death... Zeke, you scared me to death," she'd said, leaning over his hospital bed, her voice hoarse. "I'm never buying anything with mango in it again, I swear."

And she'd kept that promise, for a long time. No mango of any kind ever showed up in their home again. When they ate out, she double-checked every dish. Even at the grocery store, she'd steer clear of the mango display on instinct.

But now, in the photo, that same golden fruit clung to her fingers. And she was laughing, so naturally, so happily, as if it were nothing more than ordinary cream, not the very thing that had nearly cost her husband his life.

"Zeke?"

Scarlett's voice pulled him back from the memory. He looked up sharply and found everyone staring at him. Tammy's eyes held a flicker of concern she couldn't quite hide.

"You don't look so good. Are you okay?" Scarlett leaned in, brow furrowing. "Is something wrong?"

Zeke only then noticed his hand was shaking. He quickly locked his phone and set it face-down on the table, a little harder than he meant to, the sharp little slap of it against the wood ringing out.

"I'm fine," he heard himself say, his voice coming out dry and flat. "Just... a little stuffy in here, maybe."

"Should we crack a window?" someone offered, half-rising.

"No need." Zeke stood, the motion a little too abrupt, his chair legs scraping harshly against the floor. "I'll go settle the bill."

He walked out of the private room almost like he was fleeing. The air in the hallway did feel a little fresher, but his chest still felt tight, like something soaked and heavy was pressing down on it.

He made his way to the register, gave the room number, and swiped his card to pay.

The whole time, he kept his head down, not daring to look at his own reflection in the mirror beside the counter.

"Sir, would you like a receipt?" the cashier asked.

"No, thanks," he said.

He turned to head back. At the door of the private room, he paused.

Inside, the laughter and chatter were still going, Scarlett in the middle of telling some story that had everyone cracking up.

The laughter reached him as if through a thick pane of glass, muffled and distant.

Zeke leaned against the cold wall and let out a slow breath. He pulled out his phone and opened the post again. This time he took his time, looking closer, more carefully.

Every photo. Every smile. Every detail.

At last, his thumb hovered over the screen, resting for a long moment on that familiar profile picture, before he swiped left and tapped the option: Don't view this person's posts.

A confirmation popped up: [After this, you will no longer see updates from this friend.]

He tapped confirm.

The screen went dark.

A gust of evening wind blew in from the end of the hallway, cool against his flushed cheeks. Zeke straightened up, adjusted his collar, and pushed open the door to the private room.

"Bill's settled," he told the coworkers who looked his way, his face blank. "I'm feeling a bit tired. I'm going to head out. You all enjoy the rest of the night."

"What, already?" Scarlett looked disappointed.

"Yeah." Zeke picked up the jacket draped over the back of his chair. "Tammy, everyone, I'll see you tomorrow."

He nodded and turned to leave. Behind him came a scattering of goodbyes, "get home safe," "get some rest," but he didn't look back.

Stepping outside, the autumn night air rushed toward him. The sycamore leaves lining the street had already begun to turn gold, gilded shadows under the streetlights. Zeke zipped up his jacket, tucked his hands into his pockets, and started walking slowly home.

His phone buzzed again in his pocket. He didn't take it out to look.

He just kept walking, letting the night wind brush his face, slip down his collar, and carry away the last trace of the hollow warmth he'd brought with him from the private room.

The streetlights stretched his shadow out long, then short, then long again, like some silent companion, or maybe like a mark of solitude he couldn't shake.

He walked like that until the familiar building came into view. The living room window was dark. Nikki still wasn't home.

Of course not. The birthday party was probably still going strong.

Zeke looked up at that dark window for a moment, then lowered his head, pulled his keys from his pocket, and opened the door to the building.

The motion-sensor light in the stairwell clicked on, casting its dim yellow glow.