JaceThe final ruling landed on a Wednesday in December, exactly eleven-fourteen in the morning. I was tucked into the back booth of that crappy east-side coffee shop, poking at some sad thing that had the nerve to call itself a pastry.This time my contact sent the whole document. Three dense pages of council-speak, the kind they save for when it’s really, truly finished.I skimmed it fast at first, just to catch the outline.Then I went back and read every line slow, letting it settle.After that I just sat there, mediocre coffee going cold, pastry still failing at life, staring at the screen. No big moment. No gasp, no triumphant fist in the air. The place was half-empty anyway, and none of that felt right. Not today.So I closed the file, turned my phone face-down, and stayed perfectly still for a minute.The booth had a window. Outside, December was doing its gray, cold routinecompletely uninterested in some council decision two territories away. Just another morning, marching on
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