Page 109 of Oliver

Page List

Font Size:

The truth of it hit me with physical force, stealing my breath. This wasn't just about losing Zahra. This was about losing myself, piece by piece, year by year, sacrifice by sacrifice, until there was nothing left worth offering, nothing left worth keeping.

"I have no regrets, but I have nothing left worth giving. Nothing left for you to love back." I swallowed hard, forcing out the last words. "I just wanted you to know I understand now, and that I won’t try to dull your shine.”

I ended the call, let the phone fall from my numb fingers onto the floor, and dropped my head into my hands.

The silence rushed back in, but it felt different now. Less like a vacuum and more like the moment after an explosion, when dust and debris hang suspended in midair, waiting to settle into new formations.

I'd broken one more rule tonight. I'd shown weakness. Vulnerability. Need.

And the universe hadn't collapsed around me.

I slugged back to bed, too exhausted to even remove my glasses, and stared at my ceiling. Jupiter's Great Red Spot. A storm that had raged for centuries, unchanging. Until recently.Scientific observations had shown it was shrinking, that it could potentially disappear altogether in our lifetime.

Even the most constant things in our universe were changing. A lesson written by my beloved stars that I had somehow failed to learn.

But not tonight. Tonight, I would sleep in this empty apartment, surrounded by the artifacts of a life I'd chosen not because I loved it, but because I feared anything else. Tonight, I would surrender to the grief of losing Zahra, of losing myself, of winning a battle while losing a war.

I closed my eyes, surrendering to the exhaustion that had been building for days. For years, maybe.

As consciousness slipped away, one last thought surfaced—not of Zahra, not of the house in Norman, not of all I'd lost or failed to gain. But of stars. Of evolution. Of the miraculous fact that even in death, stars created the elements necessary for new life.

Perhaps there was hope in that, somewhere.

But hope would have to wait for tomorrow. Tonight, there was only darkness and the slow drift into another restless sleep.

Thirty-Two

ZAHRA

The office wasempty except for me, the overhead lights dimmed hours ago to conserve energy, only my desk lamp illuminating the space. I stared at my phone screen, Oliver's name and number displayed, my thumb hovering over the call button.

Two days of the same result. Two days of his voicemail greeting, polite and professional, with no response to my messages. Forty-eight hours of growing anxiety gnawing at the edge of every breath.

I pressed call anyway, listening to it ring until his voice answered mechanically: "You've reached Oliver Beck. I'm unavailable to take your call. Please leave a message, and I'll return your call at my earliest convenience."

Not, "I can't come to the phone right now." Not, "I'm busy."Unavailable. The word choice seemed deliberate; a barrier as carefully constructed as everything else in his life.

I ended the call without leaving another message. What was the point? It was clear he wasn’t intending to call me back.

Instead, I opened my voicemail and found his message. I'd played it so many times the app had automatically marked it as "important," as if I needed a digital reminder of how much his broken voice haunted me.

I pressed play, closing my eyes as his words filled the quiet office.

"Zahra..."

The crack in his voice when he said my name made my chest ache every time.

The message kept playing, every word another slash to my soul.

I could picture him so clearly—fingers gripping his hair until he practically tore it out by the root, eyes squeezed shut against emotions he'd spent a lifetime suppressing, his expression twisting, trying to push back pain he could no longer bury.

And every short and shallow breath that held a world of hurt made me bleed for the boy who never learned how to let people love him back.

A soft knock on my office door made me jump, my finger quickly pressing pause. I looked up to see Elena standing in the doorway, her expression curious.

"Still working?" she asked, stepping into the office without waiting for an invitation. "It's almost nine."

I switched off my phone screen. "Just wrapping up some details for the Nguyen wedding next month."