Page 128 of Impulse Control

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And what I was finally going to let fall out of it.

I didn’t go back to the Daily.

I didn’t go home.

I didn’t call anyone.

I left campus and just… kept walking.

Past cafés full of people who looked like they knew where they were going. Past tourists clustered around maps and monuments, pointing at things they’d planned to see. Past students sitting on the steps by the river, smoking and laughing and being loudly, messily alive.

The city moved around me like a current I wasn’t part of.

I walked without taking out my camera. Without checking my phone. Without even pretending I had somewhere to be.

When my legs finally slowed, I found myself sitting on the edge of a stone wall by the Seine, watching the water slide past like it had better things to do than linger.

I took out my phone anyway.

Opened Dominic’s name.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

Typed:

I miss you.

Deleted it.

Typed:

This week is insane. I feel like I’m disappearing.

Deleted that too.

Typed nothing.

Then, impulsively, I hit record.

Just ten seconds.

“Hey,” I said softly. “It’s crazy here. And I— I miss you.”

I listened to it once.

It sounded thin. Exposed. Like I was asking for something I didn’t know how to receive.

It sounded needy.

So I deleted it.

The screen went blank again.

I stared at my reflection in the dark glass, the faint outline of my face layered over the city lights behind me.

Not grief.

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