Chapter 4

I went back to my desk and sat down. Beside me, coworkers were chatting, a low drone of voices, and I didn't take in a single word.

I unlocked my computer, opened the HR system, clicked into the resignation section, and started filling it out.

Halfway through, my eyes stung. I got up to pour myself a glass of water in the break room, and when I passed the HR office the door was open, with no one inside.

A few onboarding files were spread across the desk. Denys James's was on top, with Fern Henson's tucked underneath it.

Same university. Same year. Same major.

I stood in the doorway and looked for a few seconds.

The fingers around my cup slowly tightened.

Back at my desk, I opened the internal directory and found a senior guy in Denys's department, someone who'd followed him over from his last company a few years back.

I asked him whether Denys had had a girlfriend back at Ashford University.

There was silence for a moment, then a reply: Yeah, he did. They broke up later.

Around graduation year, I think. The girl's family didn't approve. Not sure of the details, but Denys drank a lot around that time.

I stared at the screen, hands resting on the keyboard, and didn't move for a long while.

I remembered something.

About two years ago, Denys came home drunk one night and we ended up in bed, and the whole time he kept mumbling a name under his breath.

I'd been drinking too and wasn't thinking clearly, and he fell asleep fast, so I figured I'd misheard and let it go.

A few days later I brought it up. His face went dark and he said I'd remembered it wrong, told me to stop imagining things, and I never asked again.

That name came back to me now. A surname. The same surname as Fern.

My stomach turned over hard.

I braced myself on the desk and stood, walked to the restroom, pushed the door open, bent over the toilet and gagged twice. Nothing came up.

The tap water was freezing when I washed my hands, running over the backs of them. I looked up at the mirror. My face was a terrible white.

Back at my desk, I closed the resignation page and just started dumping everything from my drawers into a bag.

Water bottle, hand cream, nap pillow, a few pens, all of it shoved in together.

The coworker next to me asked where I was going. I said I had something to deal with and was leaving early.

Once I got home, I dragged my suitcase out from under the bed and threw all my clothes in without folding them, stacked the books off the shelf into a cardboard box, and tipped the drawer contents into my backpack.

I booked a high-speed train ticket home for five thirty that afternoon, then took out my phone and sent Denys a message.

"Denys, let's break up."