Chapter 84: The Absence
Chapter 84: The Absence
Weeks blurred into each other — coffee, construction reports, late-night emails.
The Carver House Café had become my second heartbeat, steady and mechanical.
I woke to its hum every morning, stayed past closing most nights, as if work could fill the hollow Alex left behind.
He was gone.
Not in the way that ends things — just gone in the way absence carves space where warmth used to be.
The press was still relentless. The story hadn’t died, just evolved.
Some days he was guilty. Some days he was misunderstood.
Most days, he was simply unreachable.
Leah called once or twice, mostly for legal updates.
“He’s doing everything he can,” she said.
I nodded, pretending I wasn’t counting the days since I’d heard his voice.
He hadn’t asked me to wait.
And I hadn’t promised I would.
Still, every time the door of the café opened and a familiar frame caught my eye, my breath caught too — just for a second, before the truth settled back in.
It wasn’t him.
It never was.
\---
The Carver House Café ran smoother than ever.
The soft launch after the opening had given way to steady crowds, murmured praise, and glowing reviews.
“Warmth meets elegance,” one article said. “A space built from love and vision.”
I almost laughed when I read that.
They didn’t know that the love part had gone quiet.
I still kept his mug on the counter — the dark ceramic one he’d chosen when we were still arguing over tile colors and menu layouts.
He’d said it made the place feel like home.
Now it just made it feel haunted.
I poured coffee into it every morning out of habit, then dumped it out by noon.
Little rituals, small denials.
They were the only things keeping me from unraveling.
\---
When people asked about him, I smiled — polite, practiced, empty.
“Alex is handling the corporate side,” I’d say.
And that was true, technically.
He was handling it somewhere else, somewhere far from me.
I told myself I understood.
He had to fix what the world broke.
He couldn’t afford distraction.
But part of me wondered if I’d become just that — a distraction he couldn’t carry right now.
Sometimes, late at night when the café emptied and the soft jazz faded into quiet, I’d catch my reflection in the glass wall — tired eyes, faint smudges of espresso on my sleeve, a woman pretending not to wait for someone.
The city moved on outside, lights shifting, people laughing, life continuing without permission.
And I envied them for it.
\---
Leah dropped by once, unannounced.
She didn’t stay long — just long enough to order tea she didn’t drink and study me over the rim of the cup.
“You’re doing well,” she said finally.
“I’m managing.”
She tilted her head, a faint smile. “That’s not the same thing.”
“I don’t have much choice.”
She set the cup down, her tone softening. “You know he’s fighting, right? This isn’t like before. He’s not hiding.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you sound like you don’t?”
I didn’t have an answer.
Because knowing and feeling weren’t the same.
Because love didn’t feel like waiting in silence while the world tore at the person you cared about.
It felt like drowning quietly so they wouldn’t hear the splash.
\---
When I got home that night, I stood in front of my sketchboard.
The plans for the hotel’s upper suites stared back — clean lines, minimalist touches, the kind of design that whispered calm.
We’d drawn them together once, side by side, his pencil brushing mine.
Now the graphite felt cold under my fingers.
I tried to work, but my mind drifted — to his voice, his hand tracing patterns on my back, the way he’d said “you’re not her” as if it was both a warning and a prayer.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe I wasn’t her.
But I wasn’t sure who I was without him either.
\---
A week later, the café hosted a small charity brunch — an idea we’d once planned to do together.
The press came. Cameras flashed.
People laughed and toasted and clinked glasses, and I smiled through all of it.
From the outside, it must’ve looked like success — like stability, grace under pressure.
Inside, it felt like performance art.
When someone asked if Alex would be joining, I just said, “He sends his regards.”
It sounded believable enough.
After they left, I lingered by the espresso machine, watching the last drops fall into the pot.
The café smelled like cinnamon and coffee — comforting, familiar.
But for the first time since we opened, I didn’t feel at home there.
\---
The night was colder than usual when I locked up.
Outside, the city hummed softly, like an old lullaby.
I walked past the fountain Alex had insisted on installing — “People need beauty in the in-between spaces,” he’d said.
I stopped there, watching the water catch the light, remembering the way his hand had brushed mine when we stood there the first night after the café’s soft opening.
He’d kissed me then — slow, certain, like the world finally made sense.
Now, it felt like a story I’d dreamed.
\---
When I got home, my phone was blinking.
A message.
Alex: Still working on it. Don’t lose faith.
I read it three times, my chest tightening at every word.
Not I miss you.
Not I’m sorry.
Just don’t lose faith.
I wanted to reply, to tell him that faith was the only thing I hadn’t figured out how to hold onto.
But instead, I turned off the phone, crawled into bed, and whispered to the dark:
“Come back clean. That’s all I need.”
\---
The next morning, I woke before dawn.
The city was still half-asleep, the streets washed in that soft blue light that makes everything feel suspended.
I stood by the window, coffee in hand, watching the horizon blur.
Somewhere out there, Alex was fighting his own war.
And somewhere in me, something fragile was still waiting for him to win it.
But until then, I’d build.
Brick by brick, cup by cup.
Because if The Carver House was our dream, then it deserved to survive — even if we didn’t.