One Negative Variable
Riley
The break did not feel like relief in the way Riley had expected it to.
Logically, removing variables that introduced instability should have reduced internal strain. That was how these situations usually worked. Identify the source of disruption, reduce exposure, allow the system to stabilise. The outcome might not be immediate, but it was generally predictable.
What she had not accounted for was the possibility that removing the source of disruption would also remove something else. Nothing about her environment had changed in any meaningful way, and yet the absence she created had not produced the quiet she had expected.
If anything, it had made her increasingly aware of thoughts she had assumed would dissipate once he was removed.
It had been two weeks—fourteen days—since she had withdrawn from the contract. Twelve since she informed her employer that she required a temporary cessation of work due to what she had described as ‘reduced cognitive efficiency’.
She expected resistance, clarification, or at minimum a discussion regarding timelines. Instead, she was informed that she had accumulated an unreasonable amount of annual leave and was required to take it.
Required had made the decision easier to accept, instructions generally did.
What she had not anticipated was discovering how much empty space existed once work was removed from the equation.
Time behaved differently when it could not be converted into productivity.
It stretched into parts of the day she normally filled without thinking, creating long unstructured intervals that had not taken into consideration would impact her so much.
And within those intervals sat thoughts she had been attempting very hard not to think.
She had not stayed inside. That, at least, represented a measurable change.
The café wasn’t new. Dee had been ordering Riley coffee there for years.
April Violet Café sat only a few streets from the apartment, close enough that it had gradually become part of the geography of their lives.
Riley knew that Dee had spent countless afternoons there long before she had convinced Riley to go with her, usually occupying a seat near the window because she loved looking at the park across from it.
What was new was that she had started coming by herself. The first time had been accidental. She had been walking without a destination and found herself standing outside before she had consciously decided to enter.
Then she had stayed longer than intended.
Afterwards, she had chosen to come back.
During one visit, she had asked the owner Colin why the café was called April Violet Café.
The name seemed statistically more likely to refer to a flower than a person.
Colin had explained that it was both. April Violet was his late wife’s favourite flower and her signature scent.
Naming the café after it made him feel close to her.
He had said it without embarrassment, offering the information as straightforwardly as if he were discussing the weather. Riley appreciated that. Colin generally seemed to understand that information did not require performance in order to be meaningful.
He noticed most things, but not in a way that felt intrusive. Over time, the music always seemed to lower slightly after she arrived. At first she had assumed coincidence, eventually she had accepted that it was intentional.
He never mentioned doing it. She never mentioned noticing.
The loops had helped initially. Without them, the layers of conversation, movement, coffee machines and background music competed too aggressively for attention. The café had felt like something to endure rather than inhabit. Now they spent increasing amounts of time in her bag.
Some days still required them, but there were longer stretches where she forgot to put them in at all, sitting comfortably enough with the ambient noise that she only remembered their existence when her hand brushed against them later.
Now she sat in her usual place by the window, her fingers resting loosely against the warm ceramic of her mug while her attention drifted between the street outside and the reflection staring back at her in the glass.
She was aware of the shift in her own behaviour. Not analysing it had been intentional.
Temporary non-analysis, she labelled it.
The problem was that avoiding analysis had not prevented observation, and observation was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Because the thoughts she was avoiding had not disappeared.
Dee slid into the seat across from her, the movement cutting cleanly through the quiet.
“You didn’t even notice me walk in.”
“I did,” Riley replied. “I chose not to acknowledge it.”
Dee huffed a laugh. “Uh huh, whatever you say, babe.” She set her bag down and studied Riley for a moment before reaching for her coffee. “How’s the break going?”
Riley considered the question carefully. “I am not optimising it effectively.”
“That sounds like a good thing.”
Riley looked down at the mug in front of her, her fingers shifting slightly against the warm ceramic. “I am... existing within it.”
It was the closest approximation she could find.
Her days no longer reduced neatly into tasks and outcomes.
There was no measurable progression, no framework she could apply to determine whether the break was working.
Entire afternoons passed without producing anything tangible, leaving her alone with thoughts she had been attempting not to examine.
Those thoughts had proven remarkably persistent. Across from her, Dee’s expression softened. “That’s amazing, Riley.”
Riley nodded. She wasn’t entirely convinced.
Part of her recognised that something had changed.
She could sit here now without actively filtering every conversation around her.
She could tolerate unpredictability for longer periods of time.
She had started coming here alone and, more significantly, had continued doing so.
That suggested adaptation. Whether it suggested stability was another question entirely. There was a brief pause before Dee spoke again. “Declan came by.”
Riley went still, her grip tightening fractionally around her mug. “When?”
“A few hours ago.” Something tightened in her chest. He had gone to the apartment, that had not been part of the plan.
“He asked for you,” Dee continued. “I told him you weren’t there.”
“He cannot go there.” The words left her more sharply than intended.
Dee leaned back slightly. “He didn’t come inside.”
Riley looked away. The café suddenly felt louder than it had a moment ago. “I cannot see him.”
The statement sounded more definitive spoken aloud than it felt internally. Dee was quiet for a moment, then she said gently, “He’s gone, Riles.”
Riley froze. Riles. The sound arrived before she could stop it, before she could prepare for it. For a moment, all she could hear was his voice.
Riles. The familiarity of it settled somewhere unexpectedly deep, pulling against something she had spent two weeks trying not to look at directly. She squeezed her eyes shut, attempting to block out his voice. Across the table, Dee’s expression shifted immediately.
“Hey.”
Riley blinked. The café came back into focus gradually. The conversation, the people around them, the street beyond the window.
“That is not...” she began.
The sentence dissolved before it reached completion. Because the problem wasn’t the name. The problem was how much she missed hearing it too much.
“I do not prefer that form of address,” she said finally.
Even as she said it, she knew the statement was incomplete. Dee seemed to know it too, but she only nodded.
“Okay. I won’t use it.”
Riley nodded back. The feeling remained anyway.
?
By the time they left the café, it was quieter but no less present, lingering beneath everything else while her thoughts continued to circle the same conclusion from different angles.
Removing Declan from her life had been intended to create distance. Instead, it had made the shape of the absence impossible to ignore.
“I need sugar,” Dee announced as she kicked the apartment door shut behind them.
Riley paused in the doorway and watched her. “Need is a strong word.”
“I’m stressed about my bank application,” Dee replied without hesitation. “That qualifies as a need.”
Riley considered that for a moment before nodding. “That is a reasonable argument.”
“Thank you,” Dee said, already crossing toward the freezer. “I appreciate your support during this difficult time.”
She pulled the door open and immediately brightened. “Good. Emergency ice cream.”
“You purchased ice cream specifically for emotional distress?”
“Of course I did.” Dee looked over her shoulder as if the answer should have been obvious. “You prepare for emergencies before they happen.”
Riley accepted that logic more easily than she probably should have. “Besides,” Dee added, retrieving the tub, “if I’m going to have an existential crisis waiting to hear, I’d rather not do it without dessert.”
Dee grinned faintly and disappeared into the kitchen before returning with a tub of ice cream and two spoons.
She tossed one toward Riley, who caught it automatically.
Neither of them bothered with bowls. They settled side-by-side on the couch instead, passing the container back and forth in a rhythm so familiar it required no discussion.
After several minutes, Dee nudged her shoulder lightly. “We should watch something.”
Riley glanced across at her. “What genre?”
“Comfort.”
“That is not a genre.”
“It is tonight.”
Riley considered that. “Pride and Prejudice,” she decided. “The good one.”
Dee nodded. “See? You knew exactly what I meant.”