30
LUCIEN
I stood at the front of the small conference room. A whiteboard behind me. Color-coded diagrams. Timelines. Flow charts. Coffee cups littered the table. No one had slept much.
I had planned this meticulously. Every phase. Every contingency. Every possible outcome.
What I had not planned for was Sabrina.
She sat in the front row, notebook open, pen ready. She was taking this way too seriously. I'd seen her take wedding planning less seriously. Rohit sat beside her, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. I couldn't blame him.
Kai sat in the corner, arms crossed, trying to look cool. Failing. He'd been trying to look cool since he walked in. It wasn't working.
The door opened.
Jade walked in.
She froze. I froze. Everyone froze.
Jade blinked. "Uh… wrong room?"
Sabrina immediately pointed to the door. "Yes. Wrong room. Very wrong. Bye."
Jade didn't move. She looked around slowly. Took in the scene. Kai. Me. Sabrina. Rohit. The whiteboard. Her eyes narrowed.
"Why are you all in a conference room at nine in the morning?"
Silence. I considered lying. Considered making something up. Considered asking her to leave.
Instead, my mouth said, "Team building."
Jade pointed at Kai. "With him?"
Kai straightened in his chair. "I'm very team-oriented."
He wasn't. He really, really wasn't.
Jade walked toward the whiteboard, squinting at the writing. She read it out loud. "Phase One: Demonstrate visible change. Phase Two: Selena notices. Phase Three: Slow reconnection."
She turned slowly. Her eyes widened.
"Please tell me this is a kidnapping plan," she said. "Because that would make more sense."
Rohit opened his mouth. "Worse," he said. "We're planning to give her back to him." He pointed directly at Kai.
Sabrina elbowed him hard. "Oof—" "Don't," Sabrina warned.
Jade stared at all of us. Then she looked at me. Very slowly. "Why would you give your wife away?"
Silence filled the room.
Kai answered before I could. "Because he's dying."
Rohit's head snapped toward me. "Wait, WHAT?"
Sabrina looked at him in disbelief. "I told you that an hour ago."
"You did not!"
"I said he had a personal project!"
"That is not the same thing!"
Jade ignored them completely. She grabbed a chair, spun it around, and sat down like she had just bought a ticket to the show.
"I'm staying for this," she said. "Carry on."
I looked back at my whiteboard. My color-coded diagrams. My timelines. My carefully planned operation. Then I looked at the room. Sabrina arguing with Rohit. Kai trying to look cool and still failing. Jade grinning like she'd just discovered the best entertainment of her life.
For a moment, my chest tightened. Not from the chaos. From the quiet reminder that I probably wouldn't be around long enough to see how this ended.
I exhaled slowly. "We're doomed."
I turned back to my board, trying to refocus. "As I was saying. Phase One: Kai demonstrates visible change. Phase Two: Selena notices. Phase Three: Slow reconnection. Phase Four—"
"Phase Four: I murder everyone involved," Sabrina cut in.
"I like Phase Four," Jade said.
"Can I see the whiteboard? I'm too far away," Kai asked.
"It's bullet points, Kai. There are six of them. You can read from there."
"I have astigmatism," he said.
"You've known my sister for fifteen years and I'm just now learning you have astigmatism?"
"It never came up!"
Jade snatched a marker from me. "Let me fix this." She drew a stick figure with X's for eyes and wrote SELENA'S EX under it. "There. Now we all know who we're dealing with."
I stared at the board. This was not what I envisioned.
"This is exactly what I envisioned," Sabrina said.
I took a deep breath. "Task one. Kai, you need to apologize to Selena. Sincerely. No excuses. No justifications."
"I can do that," Kai said.
"Say the words. Right now. Pretend I'm her," Sabrina said.
"Selena, I'm sorry for—"
"Too fast. Slower. And look me in the eye," she interrupted.
"Selena, I'm sorry for—"
"More feeling. You sound like you're ordering coffee," Jade said.
"I'M SORRY FOR EVERYTHING!" Kai yelled.
"Now you're yelling at me. In a conference room. At 9 a.m. Perfect. This is going great," Sabrina said.
I wrote on the whiteboard: Task one: failed. Moving to Task Two.
"What's Task Two?" Jade asked.
"I haven't decided yet," I admitted.
"You're planning my sister's future happiness on a whiteboard with no Task Two?"
"I'm dying, Sabrina. Not omniscient," I said.
Silence. Rohit shifted uncomfortably but said nothing.
Jade looked at me differently. Something flickered in her eyes. Understanding. Or maybe pity. She didn't ask.
"Okay. Carry on," she said.
"Let's try again. Jade, you'll play Selena. Sabrina, you'll observe and critique," I said.
"I get to be Selena? Finally, a role I'm qualified for," Jade said.
"That's not funny," Sabrina said.
"It's a little funny," Jade replied.
"So I just... talk to her?" Kai asked.
"Yes. Naturally. Like she's just a person," I said.
"Hi. How are you?" Kai asked Jade.
"I'm great. So much better without you in my life?"
"JADE."
"What? I'm improvising!"
I erased the whiteboard. "We're starting over."
We moved to the hotel restaurant for "strategy lunch." Kai ordered a salad. Sabrina stared at him.
"You don't eat salad," she said.
"I'm trying to be healthy," he said.
"He's trying to be hot for Selena," Jade added.
"JADE."
"What? It's true. Look at him. Salad. Astigmatism confession. He's a mess," she said.
"She has a point," Sabrina said.
I wasn't eating. Just watching them. "I've made a terrible mistake," I muttered.
"You're just realizing this now?" Jade asked.
"We've been at this for three hours and all we've accomplished is a whiteboard with a dead stick figure," Sabrina said.
"I feel like I'm being ganged up on," Kai said.
"You ARE being ganged up on. Welcome to consequences," Jade replied.
I spoke to myself quietly. "I should have just let her find someone new. A nice accountant. Someone normal."
"We can hear you," Sabrina said.
"I know," I admitted.
Hours later. Room service. Floor seating. The whiteboard was now covered with doodles.
"I think I get it now," Kai said.
"Get what?" Sabrina asked, not looking up.
"I never saw her. Really saw her. I just... expected her to be there. And she always was. Until she wasn't."
Silence.
"That was actually profound," Jade said mid-downward dog.
"Did you just have a feeling?" Sabrina asked, looking up.
"I don't know. Maybe," Kai said.
"Write that down. That's progress," I said from the floor.
"I'm not writing that down," Sabrina said.
"I'll write it down," Jade said. She grabbed the marker and added: KAI HAD A FEELING. MIRACLE.
"That's not helpful," I said.
"It's historically significant," she said.
A knock on the door.
"Housekeeping!" a voice called.
"Hide the whiteboard," Sabrina panicked.
"Why?" Kai asked.
"Because it says 'SELENA'S EX' with X's for eyes. Just hide it," Jade said.
Chaos. Kai tripped over Jade. Sabrina threw a blanket over the whiteboard. I hadn't moved from the floor.
"Oh! I'm so sorry. I'll come back," the housekeeper said, leaving quickly.
We stared at each other.
"We're pathetic," Jade said.
"Completely pathetic," Sabrina said.
"I still haven't apologized to her," Kai said.
"Task one. Still failed," I said from the floor.
"Want me to draw another stick figure?" Jade asked.
"No," I said.
"Yes," Sabrina said.
"I feel like this is helping. Somehow," Kai said.
"It's not," Jade said.
"Definitely not," Sabrina said.
"I'm dying and this is my legacy. Four idiots in a hotel room," I said.
"Five idiots. You're here too," Jade said.
"...Fair," I said.
Late night. More food. The whiteboard now had multiple stick figures, including one labeled LUCIEN (DYING BUT STYLISH).
"You really think this will work?" Sabrina asked quietly.
"I don't know," I admitted.
"Then why are we doing this?"
"Because doing something is better than doing nothing. Because if I don't try, I'll spend whatever time I have left knowing I gave up," I said.
"That's... actually beautiful," she said.
"Did someone say beautiful? I'm beautiful," Jade said.
"No one said you," Kai said.
"You're still on the whiteboard with X's for eyes. Watch it," Jade said.
Laughter. Real laughter. Four people who should hate each other, sharing a moment.
"We're never going to pull this off," Sabrina said.
"Probably not," Jade said.
"Definitely not," Kai said.
"But we're going to try anyway," I said.
"That's stupid," Jade said.
"I know," I admitted.
"I'm in," Sabrina said.
"Me too," Kai said.
"Fine. But I'm keeping the marker," Jade said with a sigh.
I looked at Jade and Kai and saw two people who had hurt Selena badly. Two people who had broken her in ways they were only beginning to understand. But I also saw something else. Beneath the jokes, beneath the chaos, beneath the whiteboard doodles and failed tasks, I saw two people who wanted to fix her heart. Who wanted to make her whole again. Not because it would erase what they did. But because they finally understood what they had lost.