Chapter 75 Probably
MICHAEL'S POV
There’s a difference between people who’ve known loss and people who haven’t.
The ones who haven’t ..... they brace for it abstractly. Quietly. In the back of their minds. They think things like ‘one day my parents won’t be here.’ They picture hospital rooms in soft focus. Funeral clothes that don’t quite fit right. They try to imagine the version of themselves who survives it.
But it’s theoretical.
A mental rehearsal.
And then, at some point, they look up and their mother is still stirring sugar into her coffee. Their father is still laughing too loudly at something on television. They’re still breathing. Still alive. And the fear dissolves into reflection. They decide to make the most of it.
Call more often. Visit more. Hug tighter.
It’s not bracing.
It’s appreciating.
But the ones who’ve been touched by it, really touched by it, we don’t imagine.
We remember.
We remember the phone call. The sterile air The way the world continues in obscene normalcy while yours quietly detonates. We know how fast it happens. How one second divides your life into before and after. Loss isn’t a distant shoreline for us. It’s a place we’ve already stood. We know how ruthless it is. How cold. How it doesn’t knock. How it empties rooms and leaves outlines where people used to be.
So when we think about the people we love, it isn’t hypothetical, it’s math. All it takes is a second. A missed sign. A delayed response. A body that decides it’s had enough.
Which is why I’m calling Ryan for the fifth time.
I’m sitting at my desk. My office is too bright. The sound of the air conditioner like static under my skin. My phone is pressed to my ear, and it rings.
And rings.
And rings.....
Voicemail, again. I hang up. I look at our thread. The last message from him, ‘Have fun at work.’
Mine: Highly unlikely.
After that....nothing.
I texted him at noon. At one. At two. Light check-ins, nothing dramatic. But no response. And I know, I know, he had class. I know he said he’d only teach one lesson. But I also know silence.
Silence after hospitals.
Silence before bad news.
Silence that stretches just a little too long.
People who haven’t known loss would tell me I’m overreacting. He’s probably teaching. He’s probably resting. His phone is probably on silent.
Probably....
But I’ve lived through the other probabilities. The ones that start with probably fine and end with fluorescent lighting and paperwork. My jaw tightens. I call again.
It rings.
My chest feels tight in that familiar, unwelcome way. Not panic, not yet. Just the beginning of it. The muscle memory of dread. I picture him in that classroom, pale but smiling, steadying himself when no one’s looking. I picture him saying he’s fine. He says that word too easily.
The call goes to voicemail again. I lower the phone slowly. This isn’t imagination. This isn’t theatrical fear. This is familiarity. This is knowing how quickly a body can fail. How quietly someone can slip from “tired” into something worse. All it takes is a second. And I'm not willing to learn that lesson again.
I'm supposed to be in the boardroom in eighteen minutes. Officially signing Vivienne Hansen to Knight & Rowe Publishing. Cameras. Handshakes. Strategic smiles. My father at the head of the table, watching to see if I finally look like a man who belongs there. I’m expected to lead it, expected to speak first. To outline the vision. To make it sound like legacy instead of leverage.
I glance at my watch.
Eighteen minutes.
That’s too long. Eighteen minutes of silence from Ryan is already too long. Eighteen minutes before I even walk into that room. And then the meeting itself....forty-five minutes, maybe an hour. Then the formal rundown. The introductions, the polite posturing.
Time stacked on time.
Time I don’t have.
Time I don’t trust.
And the worst part is I’m not even sure I believe in it anymore. This machine. This polished table. This inherited ambition. It used to feel like forward motion. Like building something. Now it feels like maintenance. Like preserving a structure I’m no longer convinced I want to live inside.
I picture how this plays out if I leave. My father’s jaw tightening. Vivienne’s confusion, board members exchanging looks. There will be fallout. Not explosive, just cold and measured.
Permanent.
There’s no version of this where I walk back into that room tomorrow and everything is intact. Every step I take out of my office and toward Ryan will drive another nail into the coffin of my professional credibility.
Going forward I'll be unreliable, unprofessional....distracted. Not fit to inherit. The title will quietly shift out of reach. I stand anyway. Because I’ve seen what happens when you choose the meeting. When you choose the optics. When you assume there will be more time later.
I step out of my office, closing the door behind me. The hallway stretches toward the elevators, toward the boardroom at the far end. Toward expectation. I turn the other way. Each step feels definitive. I find Jenny at her desk, already assembling folders, tablet lit up with the meeting agenda.
She looks up. “You’re early.”
“I need to go,” I say.
She blinks. “Go where?”
“Out.”
There’s a beat where she thinks I’m joking.
“Michael,” she starts carefully, “the Hansen meeting is in—”
“I know.”
The words come out sharper than I intend. I soften them immediately. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Her confusion deepens. “Your father’s already here.”
I nod. Of course he is.
“You’re leading this.”
“I know,” I repeat.
And I hate that she’ll absorb some of this. The questions, the irritation, the damage control.
“You’re going to get some of the blunt of this,” I tell her quietly. “I’m sorry for that.”
“Michael—”
“Tell them I had an emergency.”
Her brows pull together. “Is everything okay?”
I don’t answer that. “Please pass along my apologies.”
The word tastes wrong in my mouth. Jenny studies me like she’s trying to calculate the scale of whatever I’m not saying. Then she nods slowly. Professional instinct overriding curiosity.
“I’ll handle it,” she says.
“I know you will.”
As I walk toward the elevators, I’m aware of the cowardice threaded through this. My father is somewhere in this building. Already seated at the table, probably checking his watch, wondering where I am. I should tell him myself. I should walk into that room and say it plainly to his face.
I’m leaving.
But that would take time. And time is the one thing I can’t spare. So I press the elevator button instead, telling myself urgency justifies avoidance. The doors slide open. I step inside, and I don’t look back.