Chapter 16 #2
Malik blinked, taken aback. “Sabine, it’s not like that.”
She arched a brow.
“I mean yeah, you’re…you but I’m here for this. For Aderra. Because I believe in it. You don’t have to worry about me making it weird.”
Sabine stared at him for a beat. Then gave a short nod.
“Cool.”
“Cool,” he echoed.
They got back to work.
By mid-afternoon, they had a working prototype.
It wasn’t polished, not yet but it could pull in mock data, process it, and return three scenario-based recommendations for business decisions based on custom weighted values.
Sabine watched it run on the shared monitor and felt something shift inside her.
Hope.
Real hope. Not for a man. Not for love but for herself. She leaned back in her chair, tired but wired, a slow smile creeping across her face.
“Damn,” Malik said, watching the results populate. “You really did that.”
“No,” she said softly. “We did that but this idea? This dream? This was mine first.”
And this time, she was going to finish it.
A LITTLE LATER…
Sabine dropped her keys into the bowl by the door and stepped out of her heels.
Her body was buzzing from everything she and Malik had gotten done, but the second the front door closed behind her, the silence hit.
No cartoon playing in the background. No tiny shoes kicked off beside hers. No soft call of “Mommy.”
It was Adair’s week. Ade was with him, and she was…alone. She moved through the house slowly, flipping on lights as she went, not because she needed them but because the shadows made the emptiness louder. Her steps echoed in a way they hadn’t before. Or maybe she’d just been too numb to notice.
The couch still had the throw blanket she’d wrapped herself in the night Adair left.
She didn’t touch it. Instead, she went to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of wine, and leaned against the counter.
Her laptop bag sat by the table, Aderra's code still alive on her flash drive. The work she’d done today had been good.
Better than good. She had built something. She'd felt alive.
And now, she just felt…lonely.
Not in a regretful way. Not in the “I wish I’d never let him go” way.
Just lonely.
Lonely like she used to be when Ade would nap and the only sound in the apartment was the buzz of her own thoughts. Lonely like she was after Ariyah. After the silence took over. After no one showed up.
She sipped her wine and rested her head against the cabinet. There was a time when life had felt full. Chaotic, sometimes—baby toys and deadlines, dinner at nine, Adair coming in late smelling like ambition and apologies. There was a time she had loved that chaos. Had built herself around it.
Now, all that was left was her.
And that had to be enough.
She carried her glass upstairs, showered a little longer than usual, and changed into something softer. She passed Ade’s empty bed on the way to her room, the covers still made, stuffed animals perfectly in place. She always missed her baby boy.
In her own room, she sat at the edge of the bed, opened the drawer of her nightstand, and pulled out her old notebook.
The original one. The place where Aderra had first lived in scribbles and margin math.
She flipped through the pages, touching each one like it held pieces of her she was finally remembering.
Then she closed the notebook gently and whispered to the quiet:
“I got you now.”
It wasn’t meant for Adair.
It wasn’t even meant for Ade.
It was for her.
After winding down and barely eating, Sabine lay in bed, legs tangled in the sheets with the phone next to her on an active call.
“I thought you were asleep by now,” Narri said on the other end, her voice low as if she too had done some drinking and thinking.
“I couldn’t,” Sabine murmured. “Too much on my mind.”
“You okay?”
“I think so.” She paused. “I built it today. Or at least, started to. The software…Aderra.”
Narri made a proud little gasp. “You finally named it?”
“Yeah.”
“Lemme guess, Aderra…Ade and his ugly ass daddy?”
“Shut up.” Sabine smiled faintly.
“No shade. I love it. It’s soft and smart and sounds like something expensive. Like, ‘book your free consultation with Aderra today’ vibes.”
They both chuckled quietly.
Sabine turned on her side, pulling the blanket over her shoulder. “It felt good, Nar. Like…I didn’t know I could still feel that kind of good.”
“Because you forgot you could have something that’s just yours.”
“I didn’t forget. I just stopped reaching for it.”
They were quiet for a while, the kind of silence that only existed between sisters—through love and loyalty. Sabine finally broke it.
“I miss him.”
“I know.”
“But not like…I just miss who I thought we’d be.”
“You know, bestie,” Narri sighed. “Grief isn’t always about losing the person. Sometimes it’s about losing the story.”
Sabine’s eyes welled, but she didn’t cry. Not tonight.
“Thanks for answering.”
“Always,” Narri said. “You got this and I got you.”
3AM – JOURNAL ENTRY
Unable to sleep, Sabine opened her old leather notebook. The first few pages were code, notes, business names she’d once brainstormed. Then the random thoughts began—scattered lines, broken sentences. Pages she couldn’t fill back then because she didn’t have the words.
Tonight—that early morning—she did.
She flipped to a fresh page and wrote slowly:
I am learning how to return to myself.
Not as the woman I was before Adair. Or before the kids. Or before the grief.
But as the version that survived it.
The version that doesn’t need a mirror to know she’s still in here somewhere.
I have mourned a man who is still alive.
I have buried a child I never got to raise.
I have waited in silence for someone to come back and apologize, and I have learned that closure doesn’t come in someone else’s voice.
Sometimes it comes in your own.
Aderra is not just software. It is a deep breath. It is recovery. It is mine.
And I am proud of me. Even in this quiet. Especially in this quiet.
She let the pen fall loose in her hand, shut the notebook, and turned off the light.
Tomorrow, she'd build again.