Chapter 3
Iwoke up choking on smoke that wasn’t there.
My body jerked upright before my brain caught up, lungs dragging for air like I’d just come out of a collapse. The scream followed me out of sleep—hers. That mother’s voice. High. Raw. Calling for a child I couldn’t get to fast enough.
The room was dark. Quiet. No fire. No sirens. Just the ceiling fan turning slow above me. And Sanaa.
She was asleep beside me, one arm folded under her pillow, her breath soft and even and unaware of the war still raging in my head.
For a second I couldn’t move. Couldn’t trust that this was real. Then the itching started.
My neck first. Then my arm. That deep, nerve-lit burn that never fully healed, no matter what the doctors said.
I scratched at it without thinking, like I could claw the memory out of my skin.
The sensation wasn’t pain exactly. It was heat.
Phantom heat. My body remembering something it refused to forget.
I swung my legs off the bed and sat there, staring into the dark, trying to slow my breathing.
You’re home.
You made it out.
She’s alive.
Behind me, the mattress shifted.
“Tariq?” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep.
Her hand reached for me.
I turned before she could touch the worst parts of me.
“I’m good,” I whispered, leaning down to kiss her shoulder. Then her temple. “Go back to sleep.”
She blinked once, studying me even through exhaustion. Sanaa always saw more than I wanted her to.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
I kissed her again until she settled, until her breathing deepened, until she drifted somewhere peaceful I couldn’t follow.
I stayed there a moment longer, watching her. Memorizing her. Because some part of me already knew I didn’t deserve to keep this.
The shower ran hot enough to fog the mirror and sting my skin.
I stood under it longer than necessary, letting the water hit the back of my neck, replaying the night before. The way she’d touched me. The way she always touched me—like she was learning me, not just wanting me.
And how I’d held back. I hadn’t meant to. But every time she tried to pull me closer, really closer, something inside me locked down. Like if I let her all the way in, she’d see the things I saw. Hear the things I heard.
Smell the smoke still living inside my lungs.
Her eyes had searched mine afterward. Quiet. Asking questions she was too kind to say aloud and I couldn’t answer them. Hell, I couldn’t answer myself.
The department therapist had tried to keep me off duty.
“You’re not ready,” she’d said, hands folded like she was bracing for impact.
I told her I was fine. Told her I slept. Ate. Functioned. But I didn’t tell her about the dreams. Didn’t tell her I still heard that woman screaming when things got too quiet.
Didn’t tell her that work was the only place my brain stopped replaying the fire.
I knew how to say the right things. I knew how to make my voice steady.
Eventually, she signed the clearance even though it was clear she wasn’t convinced, but she couldn’t prove I was lying.
When I got home that evening, I didn’t notice it right away.
I tossed my keys in the bowl. Dropped my jacket over the chair. Opened the fridge and grabbed a beer.
Quiet.
But she’d said she had a meeting. Something about a young artist needing space. I pictured her in some gallery somewhere, hands moving while she talked, eyes alive the way they always got when she believed in someone.
I took a drink and walked down the hall.
Something felt… off. I couldn’t name it yet. It was just a pressure at the base of my skull. Instinct before thought. I opened the closet.
Empty hangers.
I stared at them without understanding. Then understanding hit all at once.
The drawers were half open. Cleared out. No scarves. No perfume. No shoes kicked off in that careless way she always left them.
Just space. Too much space.
The beer slipped from my hand and hit the carpet without breaking.
That’s when I saw the envelope on the dresser. My name. In her handwriting.
I didn’t sit to read it. Didn’t breathe either.
Tariq,
I tried to stay.
God knows I tried.
You’re right here with me every day, but somehow you’re already gone. I can feel you pulling away even when you’re holding me. Even when you say my name.
I know you’re hurting. I know that fire took something from you. But it’s taking you from me too.
And I don’t know how to compete with ghosts.
I miss you while you’re standing in front of me. I miss you when we’re in the same bed. I miss you when you look at me like you’re trying to remember how to feel.
I love you. That hasn’t changed.
But I can’t keep reaching for someone who won’t reach back.
So I’m going. For me. And maybe for you too.
If you ever find your way back to yourself… you know where to find me.
— Sanaa
I read it twice.
Then I sat down on the floor because my legs stopped working.
The apartment smelled like her perfume. The one she always wore. Byredo Bal d’Afrique that always clung to her fabric and skin.
It was everywhere. And she wasn’t.
I pressed the heel of my hand into my eyes, but it didn’t stop anything. Didn’t stop the sound that came out of me either. I’d been so damn afraid of losing her. So afraid of letting her see how broken I was. I pushed her away to protect her.
And lost her anyway.
My apartment was too quiet. Not the good kind. Not the kind you earn after a long shift when your body finally powers down. This was the kind of quiet that sat there… waiting. Like it expected something to fill it and knew nothing would.
I stood at the counter longer than necessary, protein shake untouched in my hand, eyes moving over the same square footage I saw every morning. Stainless steel. Clean lines. No clutter. Everything exactly where I left it. That should have felt normal.
It didn’t.
I walked toward the hallway, catching the weak Pittsburgh morning pushing through the windows, and something tightened low in my chest. My brain did what it sometimes does before I can stop it.
A space filled with the color she brought to my life. Clothes, shoes, art, music…laughter. Orgasms. Happiness.
I blinked, dragged myself back to now.
I exhaled slowly, forcing my shoulders to settle. That was then. This is now, but memory doesn’t ask permission to show up.
I rinsed the blender, and tried to shift my focus to work. The Hill District file sat in my bag, heavier than paper should be. I’d told myself yesterday that the overlap was procedural. That her name attached to anything related to the structure was coincidence. That was a lie.
She’d consulted on pieces stored there, and she might know exactly what had been inside before the fire. Which meant I had a reason to contact her.
I pulled my laptop closer and sat down at the small desk by the window. The cursor blinked at me while I considered how to word this so it didn’t sound like I was reaching. Because I wasn’t reaching.
I was only doing my job.
Subject: Hill District Property — Contents Verification
Ms. Ellison,
I’m working through the post-incident analysis on the Hill District structure Elijah Lewis was renovating.
To complete the report, I need as accurate an inventory as possible of what was present inside prior to the fire. Specifically:
· Artworks (artist, medium, size if known)
· Storage materials (crating, textiles, packing materials)
· Any restoration supplies or installation hardware already on site
· Planned placements, if documentation exists
This helps us reconstruct fuel load and burn progression, and it may also be required for the insurance assessment.
If you have acquisition records, condition reports, or even preliminary planning notes, they would be useful.
Let me know what’s easiest.
— Tariq
I read it twice. It sounded exactly like what it was supposed to sound like: neutral. Work-related. Necessary. But my finger hovered over the trackpad anyway because the last time I’d let silence stretch between us, it cost me years.
I hit send before I could overthink it.
The message disappeared into the ether. I was just a man doing his job is what I told myself. But the beat of my heart and the pulse in my dick called me a liar.