Clark is standing by the window, shoulders tense beneath a rumpled button-down. His tie hangs loose around his neck, like he’d started getting dressed and then stopped halfway. His hands are shoved into his pockets, and his reflection in the glass is caught staring at his own phone on the windowsill—dark screen, no messages. No calls. Nothing.

He looks at that dark screen like it holds an answer he’s afraid to see.

The apartment smells like her. The faint vanilla of the candle she lit last week. The lavender she sprayed on the pillows because she liked the scent. His chest rises and falls with a slow, unsteady breath. He'd rehearsed a thousand apologies last night. A thousand ways to explain. A thousand ways to make things right.

None of them felt like enough.

A faint ache curls behind his ribs. He presses the heel of his palm against his sternum, like he could push it down. Like he could push all of it down.