Page 2 of Money Reigns
He always did.
With dares.
With plans.
With dreams.
My hands curl into fists.
The window’s new now, tempered glass, braced steel. Renovated to code. Signed off by every city inspector with a pen and a price. I paid them all.
I needed it perfect.
It still looks wrong.
There used to be a spiderweb fracture in the corner pane, barely visible unless the light hit it just right. We joked it looked like a map. Noah said it led to nowhere.
Now it leads here.
The sharp buzz of my phone rattles me back to the present.
Twenty minutes until the quarterly meeting at Beaumont Enterprises.
The machine never stops.
I take one last look at the glass before turning.
The building is almost complete; sleek, rebranded, a monument to reinvention. But I still see him. In the shadows of the frame. In the glint of sun off the glass.
Outside, the city exhales cold morning air. It’s brisk and metallic, stinging my lungs. My breath fogs the air. The skyline stretches in front of me like nothing ever happened.
ButIknow.
This place remembers.
The car idles by the curb, matte black, quiet. I slide into the driver’s seat. The leather hugs my frame like it knows my shape too well. I press the ignition. The engine hums, a purr of obedience.
Unlike memory.
It roars when you least expect it.
In the rearview mirror, the building stands polished and proud.
Yet the image burns inside me, the boy who didn’t get to grow up.
The one I couldn’t catch.
The one I never said goodbye to.
I shift into drive.
Let it fade behind me.
Like everything else I’ve buried.
Time polished the glass.
But it never cleaned the reflection.
