"One more glass," Zoe mumbled, pushing her empty glass toward the bartender. Her voice was rough, tangled in whiskey and regret, like gravel dragged across silk.
The bar pulsed low with murmurs and clinking glass. Amber light spilled from hanging bulbs, flickering against her skin like candlelight on a tombstone. Her hair was a storm, eyeliner streaked like war paint. She hadn't eaten. She hadn't slept. But the drink? The drink she remembered.
The bartender hesitated, then poured—slower this time—the liquid catching the light like molten gold. He slid it toward her, only half full.
Zoe's fingers curled around the glass, knuckles pale. But before she could lift it, a hand stopped her.
"You've had enough, Zoe," Bea said, voice steady but frayed at the edges. She stood beside her, concern carved deep into her face.
Zoe yanked the glass away, the liquor sloshing dangerously close to the rim. "Don't. Just let me."
"Zoe..."
"I said let me." She took a shaky sip. The burn clawed down her throat. It didn't soothe. Nothing did.
Bea sighed and sank onto the stool beside her. "You're drinking yourself into pieces. Every night. You think this is helping?"
Zoe's laugh cracked mid-air, brittle and sharp. "But her leaving me didn't kill me?" Her lips curled bitterly. "This? This is mercy compared to that."
The glass trembled in her hand. And then the memories came—not as thoughts, but as sensations.
The chill of the bar glass against her palm became the cold tile of her kitchen floor.
She had curled up there, knees drawn to her chest, phone glowing in her hand like a lifeline. Stacy's name lit the screen again and again. She called. And called. And called.
"Please, Stacy, just—just pick up. Please. I don't know what I did."
She called until the battery died. Then she charged it and called again, the silence louder each time.
Back in the bar, Zoe tipped her drink. The burn felt honest. Felt like truth.
Bea's hand rested gently on her back, but Zoe didn't lean in. Didn't move.
The warmth of Bea's touch sparked another memory—the scratchy fabric of the couch beneath her legs, where she'd curled up for hours, phone pressed to her ear, voice raw from pleading.
Her fingers gripped the phone like it might shatter. "Lesley," she whispered
A pause. Then Lesley's voice, hesitant. "Zoe... I don't know where she is. She won't answer me either. I swear."
"She's your best friend. She has to have told you something."
"She didn't. She just left. I'm sorry."
Zoe gripping the cushions. Her eyes were distant, lost in thought. "I don't believe you."
"I don't blame you," Lesley said softly. "But it's the truth."
The glass was empty again. Zoe turned it slowly on the bar top, condensation smearing across her fingertips like fading ink.
Around her, the room buzzed—soft music, muffled laughter—but she wasn't part of it. She was somewhere else.
She was standing across the street from Holloway & Brand, morning light catching in the windows. The building loomed, glass and steel catching the sun like a blade. People in tailored suits rushed past, their heels clicking like metronomes.
She waited. Hours passed. Coffee carts came and went. The sky dimmed.
Eventually, she crossed the street, heart thudding. "Is... is Stacy Holloway in?" she asked the receptionist, her voice barely steady.
He looked her over—confusion, pity. "She hasn't been here in months," he said. "She's not expected back."
Her legs felt hollow. Her voice vanished. She stood in the lobby, staring at the elevators that would never open for her.
"I looked everywhere for Stacy, I even went to her family's mansion," Zoe whispered, tears catching at the corners of her lashes. "I screamed her name like a lunatic. Like I was begging God."
Bea reached for her hand, and this time Zoe let her hold it.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Bea asked, voice shaking. "I would've come. I would've—"
"What?" Zoe said softly. "Stopped me?"
Bea's silence was answer enough.
Rain soaked her coat, her hair, her bones—until she couldn't tell where her skin ended and the storm began. She stood at the iron gate of the Holloway estate, fists raw from pounding against the cold metal, breath coming in ragged bursts.
"Stacy!" she screamed, voice splintering into the downpour. It wasn't just a name anymore—it was a plea, a wound, a prayer hurled into the dark.
Her cries ricocheted off the stone walls, swallowed by the silence that loomed behind them. No lights flickered on. No curtains shifted. No answer came.
She gripped the bars like they might open if she held them hard enough. Her knuckles bled against rust. Her knees buckled, but she didn't fall—she couldn't. Not yet.
"Please," she whispered now, throat shredded. "Please just come out. Just say something. Anything."
But the only reply was the rain—relentless, uncaring—drumming against the earth like a funeral march.
She stood there until her voice was gone. Until her hope was threadbare. Until the storm had wrung her out completely.
No lights. No movement. No mercy.
Just the rain.
Zoe blinked, her thumb tracing the rim of her glass like she was trying to smooth the memory away.
For days, Zoe sat on the stone steps of Stacy's penthouse building, coat clutched tight against the wind. People came and went. Stacy never did.
The receptionist finally stepped outside, pity in his eyes. "She hasn't returned. Not in weeks. I'm sorry."
Zoe didn't answer. She just kept watching the revolving doors, waiting for a silhouette that never came.
Tears hung heavy on her lashes. She stared into her empty glass, her reflection rippling in the last drop.
Bea didn't speak. She just wrapped an arm around Zoe's shoulder and let her cry—right there at the bar, where the lights flickered and the world went on like nothing had shattered.
"I never thought the day would come when I'd get my answers—and wish I hadn't."
The taxi pulled up to Holloway & Brand. Zoe stepped out, wind catching the hem of her coat. The morning was cruel—crisp and bright, every breath sharp.
She stared up at the building, heart thudding. Maybe she's inside, she thought. Maybe I'll walk in and she'll be there, behind that desk, looking up at me like none of this ever happened.
Then she saw it.
A flicker of movement. The massive LCD billboard beside the entrance.
Stacy Holloway. In a white dress, smiling—a smile Zoe hadn't seen in a lifetime. Beside her, Alexandra Brand. Beautiful. Composed. Perfect.
The screen faded into elegant script: "Congratulations to Stacy Holloway & Alexandra Brand on their engagement—Holloway-Brand 2025."
The city noise vanished. The world narrowed to that billboard.
Engaged.
Not just gone.
Not lost.
Chosen. Chosen someone else.
Zoe stood frozen, mouth slightly open, heart collapsing in slow, soundless ruin.
She never stepped inside.
She just turned, got back into the cab, and told the driver to take her anywhere.
Anywhere but there.
"That was the last time," Zoe whispered, her voice barely more than breath.
Bea didn't speak. Her eyes brimmed, glassy and bright, fixed on Sam's face. The silence stretched between them—heavy, deliberate, unbroken. It was the kind that needed no words.
Zoe wiped at her face with the back of her hand, smudging what little mascara remained. Then she laughed—low, empty, broken in the middle.
"All this time," she said, eyes fixed on the bottom of her glass, "I thought maybe she was lost. Maybe something happened. Maybe she was trying to come back to me."
Her voice trembled, then hardened.
"But she wasn't lost." She shook her head slowly. "She just moved on. And I was the one left behind... clinging to a ghost."
She kept her eyes into her glass, tracing the rim with her finger. It was empty. Of course it was.
"Funny," Zoe said, voice unraveling. "I spent weeks praying for answers. Begging for them. And when they finally came..." Her throat tightened. "...they came dressed in white, standing beside someone else."
Bea reached for her hand. Zoe didn't pull away. Didn't grip back either.
She just sat there, quiet and still, letting the weight of the silence settle in her bones.
And for the first time in weeks, she didn't ask for another drink.
Because there was nothing left to numb. Nothing left to chase.
Only the ache.
And the knowing.
And the sound of her heart—finally, painfully—letting go.