MICHAEL

The penthouse still knows her even if I don't.

That’s the first thing that hits me every morning.

Not memory—because I don’t have that.

Not nostalgia—because that requires warmth.

It’s worse.

It’s absence with shape as everything here tells a story of her.

The space beside me on the bed is too neat, like it was once occupied by someone who hated disorder but loved comfort. The curtains fall a certain way, not randomly. The kitchen smells faintly of citrus even though no one here cooks like that anymore.

I don’t remember Aliana.

But this place does.

I move through it like a trespasser.

Vanessa hates it here.

She...