Jade

You spent the last two months alone in a house where the bed stayed cold on the left side, tracking the weeks by the dust accumulating on the sills. When the cab finally dropped her off at the curb after an overseas assignment that stretched through eight long weeks, she did not look worn down by twelve hours in the air or the heavy drag of jet lag. She stepped onto the pavement carrying her own bag, her coat buttoned slightly askew, laughing softly at a parting remark from the driver with a lightness that made your chest tighten. She walked up the porch steps with that new, effortless buoyancy, her eyes bright and unfocused, moving through the front door like someone carrying an invisible warmth that had nothing to do with home. You waited until the third night, when her breathing had deepened into sleep beside you, to slide her phone off the nightstand and carry it into the dark bathroom with the tap running low. You spent an hour turning over every digital stone—scrolling through archived chats, checking message logs, cross-referencing gallery timestamps with hotel receipts—finding only clean, orderly trails of architecture, transit passes, and polite professional correspondence. There was nothing. No hidden thread, no stray digital ghost to pin your hands against, yet she moved through the kitchen with a detached, floating sort of ease, answering your questions before you finished asking them while humming melodies you had never heard before. "How was the project in Lyon?" you asked over coffee, watching her fingers trace the rim of her ceramic mug. Jade didn't look at you. She looked past your shoulder toward the open window, a small, private smile curving the corners of her mouth as she stared out at the quiet street. "It was demanding," she said, her voice drifting off into that weightless rhythm. "I'll have to go back every summer now. It's just part of the job."