What We Chase in the Dark

Sarah stared at the amber vitamin bottle on her desk—B-complex, the label promised energy, clarity, everything she'd burned through somewhere around hour fourteen of the merger negotiations. Her hands shook slightly. Caffeine jitters or something else.

Tom stood in the doorway, loosening his tie. The office was mostly dark, just the glow of laptop screens and the city beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass. He'd been making eyes at her since the Tokyo trip in March. She was thirty-eight, successful, exhausted. He was twenty-seven, hungry, entirely too observant.

"You're still here," she said, not looking up.

"Someone has to keep the vampires fed." His voice was closer now. "Sarah."

She turned. He'd stopped running—the constant sprint from associate to partner, the way he moved through meetings like he was chasing something he couldn't name. Now he was still, watching her with terrifying precision.

"The vitamins," he said, nodding at the bottle. "You've been taking them since the miscarriage. They won't bring him back."

Sarah went cold. She'd told no one. Not about the baby, not about David leaving when she wouldn't slow down, not about any of it.

"How—"

"I listen." Tom stepped into her space, close enough that she could smell the expensive scotch on his breath from the partner celebration earlier. "I know you're running from grief. I know you think if you stop moving, everything catches up to you."

Outside, lightning shattered the sky, illuminating his face—young, arrogant, desperately sincere. The storm had been threatening all evening.

"I'm not a project for you to fix."

"I'm not trying to fix you." His voice dropped. "I'm telling you that you're not the only one who's been running. I've been chasing you for three months, Sarah. Not the job. You."

The lightning flashed again, closer, and the building groaned as power died. In the sudden darkness, his hand found hers. His palm was warm, solid. Real.

She could pull away. Could keep running. Could swallow another vitamin and pretend tomorrow would be different.

Instead, Sarah squeezed back, and for the first time in a year, stopped moving.