Olivia didn’t sleep that night.

Not because she cried, and not because she was angry in the way she expected herself to be—but because her mind refused to settle into a single version of reality.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Daniel’s face in fragments: the way he smiled at her, the way he avoided her gaze for half a second too long, the way his phone had lit up like it belonged to someone else’s life.

Morning came too fast in their Manhattan apartment.

Daniel was already in the kitchen when she walked in, dressed in a navy suit, tie loosened, coffee already brewed. The city outside their glass windows was bright and indifferent, as if nothing inside their home had changed at all.

“Good morning,” he said casually, like everything between them still existed in its original form.

Olivia watched him for a moment before answering. “Did you sleep well?”

“Like a rock,” Daniel replied, not looking up from his phone.

That answer landed somewhere strange in her chest.

He slid a plate of toast toward her. “You should eat. You didn’t eat much last night.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” Olivia said.

“You’ve been saying that a lot lately,” he replied, smiling faintly.

There it was again—that effortless normalcy. The kind that made her doubt her own memory.

Daniel’s phone buzzed.

He glanced at it immediately.

Too immediately.

Olivia noticed the shift in his expression. Not guilt. Not fear. Something more practiced. Controlled.

He flipped the phone face down.

“Work?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Meeting reminders.”

But the silence after that was different from the silence before. It had weight now.

When Daniel left for work an hour later, he kissed her cheek like always. “I’ll be late tonight. Client dinner.”

“Of course,” Olivia said softly.

And then he was gone.

The apartment felt larger without him in it, like the air itself was unsure of its purpose.

Olivia stood by the window for a long time, watching the city move below. She told herself she was being irrational. Vanessa’s voice echoed in her head from the night before—calm, confident, dismissive of doubt.

“You’re just anxious.”

That word kept repeating itself.

Anxious.

As if her instincts were something she needed to fix.

Her phone buzzed.

Vanessa.

Of course.

“Hey babe,” the message read. “Free for lunch today? I miss you.”

Olivia stared at the screen longer than she meant to.

Then she typed: “Sure. Tribeca?”

“Perfect,” Vanessa replied almost instantly.

Olivia exhaled slowly.

By the time she arrived at the restaurant in Tribeca, Vanessa was already there, seated near the window, dressed in something effortlessly expensive and slightly too perfect for a casual lunch. She stood up immediately when she saw Olivia.

“There she is,” Vanessa said warmly, pulling her into a hug. “You look tired.”

“I didn’t sleep well,” Olivia admitted.

Vanessa studied her face with careful attention. “Still thinking about work stress?”

“Something like that.”

They sat down.

For a moment, everything felt normal again. Vanessa ordered wine without asking, laughed at something Olivia barely heard, and talked about her latest client like nothing else existed in the world.

Then, casually, almost carelessly, Vanessa said, “Oh, I ran into Daniel yesterday.”

Olivia’s hand paused slightly around her glass. “You did?”

“Yeah,” Vanessa said smoothly. “At that finance event downtown. He looked exhausted. Poor guy is working himself to death lately.”

Olivia nodded slowly. “He mentioned client dinners.”

Vanessa smiled. “That sounds like him. Always responsible.”

There was a pause.

Then Vanessa leaned in slightly, lowering her voice just enough to feel intimate. “You know, Olivia, I’ve always thought you two were one of those couples that just… works. Like genuinely works.”

Olivia forced a small smile. “I thought so too.”

Vanessa reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “Don’t overthink things. I know you have a tendency to spiral.”

That word again.

Spiral.

As if doubt was something self-inflicted.

Olivia looked at her friend—the same friend who had held her hand through breakups, who had helped her pick her wedding dress, who had cried at her wedding toast.

It was hard to connect that version of Vanessa with anything unsettling.

And that was exactly what made it feel worse.

After lunch, Olivia walked alone through the streets of Manhattan. The sunlight reflected off glass buildings, sharp and clean, like the city was trying to erase anything messy beneath it.

She told herself she would forget about it. Whatever “it” was.

But then her phone buzzed again.

Unknown number.

No name.

Just a single message.

“You should check his phone when he falls asleep tonight.”

Olivia stopped walking.

The crowd moved around her like she wasn’t there.

Her first instinct was disbelief. A prank. Spam. Something meaningless.

But her second instinct didn’t move at all.

It stayed.

Cold and steady.

She looked up at the skyline of New York City, suddenly unsure of which part of her life was still real.