Page 96 of The Prime-Time Experiment

For the first time that evening, Dee looked genuinely relieved. “Good.”

Declan gave her a small smile before turning back towards the stairs.

This time, when he walked away, the uncertainty he’d arrived with felt a little less sharp. Nothing had been solved. Riley was still gone, he still had no idea when she might call, or if she would. But somewhere between knocking on her door and standing in this hallway, he’d stopped wondering whether what they’d had was real.

It had been. Now he just had to give her enough time to remember that, too.

Chapter 21

One Negative Variable

Riley

The break did not feel like relief in the way Riley had expected it to.

Logically, removing variables that introduced instability should have reduced internal strain. That was how these situations usually worked. Identify the source of disruption, reduce exposure, allow the system to stabilise. The outcome might not be immediate, but it was generally predictable.

What she had not accounted for was the possibility that removing the source of disruption would also remove something else. Nothing about her environment had changed in any meaningful way, and yet the absence she created had not produced the quiet she had expected.

If anything, it had made her increasingly aware of thoughts she had assumed would dissipate once he was removed.

It had been two weeks—fourteen days—since she had withdrawn from the contract. Twelve since she informed her employer that she required a temporary cessation of work due to what she had described as ‘reduced cognitive efficiency’.

She expected resistance, clarification, or at minimum a discussion regarding timelines. Instead, she was informed that she had accumulated an unreasonable amount of annual leave and was required to take it.

Required had made the decision easier to accept, instructions generally did.

What she had not anticipated was discovering how much empty space existed once work was removed from the equation. Time behaved differently when it could not be converted into productivity. It stretched into parts of the day she normally filled without thinking, creating long unstructured intervals that had not taken into consideration would impact her so much.

And within those intervals sat thoughts she had been attempting very hard not to think.

She had not stayed inside. That, at least, represented a measurable change.

The café wasn’t new. Dee had been ordering Riley coffee there for years. April Violet Café sat only a few streets from the apartment, close enough that it had gradually become part of the geography of their lives. Riley knew that Dee had spent countless afternoons there long before she had convinced Riley to go with her, usually occupying a seat near the window because she loved looking at the park across from it.

What was new was that she had started coming by herself. The first time had been accidental. She had been walking without a destination and found herself standing outside before she had consciously decided to enter.

Then she had stayed longer than intended. Afterwards, she had chosen to come back. During one visit, she had asked the owner Colin why the café was called April Violet Café. The name seemed statistically more likely to refer to a flower than a person. Colin had explained that it was both. April Violet was his late wife’s favourite flower and her signature scent. Naming the café after it made him feel close to her.

He had said it without embarrassment, offering the information as straightforwardly as if he were discussing the weather. Riley appreciated that. Colin generally seemed to understand that information did not require performance in order to be meaningful.

He noticed most things, but not in a way that felt intrusive. Over time, the music always seemed to lower slightly after she arrived. At first she had assumed coincidence, eventually she had accepted that it was intentional.

He never mentioned doing it. She never mentioned noticing.

The loops had helped initially. Without them, the layers of conversation, movement, coffee machines and background music competed too aggressively for attention. The café had felt like something to endure rather than inhabit. Now they spent increasing amounts of time in her bag.

Some days still required them, but there were longer stretches where she forgot to put them in at all, sitting comfortably enough with the ambient noise that she only remembered their existence when her hand brushed against them later.

Now she sat in her usual place by the window, her fingers resting loosely against the warm ceramic of her mug while her attention drifted between the street outside and the reflection staring back at her in the glass.

She was aware of the shift in her own behaviour. Not analysing it had been intentional.

Temporary non-analysis, she labelled it.

The problem was that avoiding analysis had not prevented observation, and observation was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Because the thoughts she was avoiding had not disappeared.

Dee slid into the seat across from her, the movement cutting cleanly through the quiet.