My Bonus for Her Ring? Watch Me Board This Flight.

The desk lamp threw a circle of yellow light across the journal in my lap. The rest of the apartment was dark. I could hear Elliott in the kitchen — cabinet, glass, the tap running for exactly four seconds. His routine hadn't changed in five years. Mine had.

The journal was Professor Silas Beaumont's latest paper. *Quarterly Review of Behavioral Economics.* I'd been annotating it for two weeks. Twenty-three notes so far on a single methodology section. Dr. Beaumont ran a research lab in Zurich. Two years ago he'd offered me a fellowship. I'd told him I needed time. He'd said the offer would stay open as long as my mind was.

Three days ago, I'd emailed him to accept.

I turned a page and let myself remember why.

Last Monday, the fever had started.

I'd hit 102.4. The thermometer beeped twice and the bathroom tilted. I gripped the sink and waited for it to stop.

Elliott had appeared in the bedroom doorway. Not inside the room. In the doorway, one shoulder against the frame, his suitcase already standing upright beside him.

"You look terrible," he said.

I held up the thermometer. The display faced him.

He glanced at it the way he'd glance at a weather notification.

"Jade moved the Shenzhen meeting up. I need to catch the four o'clock."

"I have a fever."

"Ibuprofen's above the fridge."

He said it over his shoulder. The suitcase wheels were already humming across the hardwood.

"Elliott."

He stopped. Didn't turn.

"What."

"Nothing."

The deadbolt turned from the outside. I stood there a long time, the thermometer still warm in my hand.

Then I walked to the study, sat down, and opened the company intranet.

The resignation letter had been sitting in my drafts folder for twenty-one days. I'd written it at two in the morning after the ninth silent treatment, revised it after the tenth, and left it there like a loaded weapon I wasn't sure I'd use.

I clicked the draft. Two paragraphs. Clean. Professional. No emotion.

My finger hovered over Submit. The screen swam — fever, exhaustion, something else.

I pressed it.

***

The confirmation arrived at 8:47 the next morning.

*Your resignation request has been submitted to your direct supervisor for approval.*

Elliott was at the airport. I knew this because Jade had posted a photo of two boarding passes fanned on a café table, a matcha latte centered between them. Caption: *Travel buddy secured 🔒.*

At 9:01, the airline issued her boarding pass. Seat 14A. Window. The seat she always asked for.

At 9:03, Elliott approved my resignation.

I found the timestamp later, sitting in this same chair, staring at this same screen. His electronic signature. The comments field empty. Not a single word. Not even a period.

He'd approved it the way you'd approve a supply closet restock. Somewhere between switching her seat and pocketing his own boarding pass, he'd tapped a button and ended five years.

Two minutes.

That was the gap between her window seat and my severance.

***

The front door opened now, pulling me back.

His footsteps crossed the living room. The blazer landed on the couch. Then his shadow filled the study doorway.

"You're still up."

I didn't look away from the journal. "Reading."

He stepped inside. His fingers lifted the journal from my hands before I could react, flipping it over to scan the cover.

"*Quarterly Review of Behavioral Economics.*" He said it like a punchline. His thumb fanned the pages, pausing on my annotations. Blue ink, dense margins.

"You actually understand this stuff?"

I reached for it. He held it out of range.

"Give it back, Elliott."

"Relax. I'm just asking." But he didn't give it back. He tilted it toward the lamp, squinting at one of my notes. "You spend hours on this. It's like a hobby for you."

A *hobby.*

I stood up. Took the journal from his hand. He let it go this time.

He turned to leave, then stopped. His eyes caught the bookshelf behind me. The second shelf — the one that used to hold a row of silver frames. Our engagement party. Lake Como. The company gala where he'd pulled me into the photo booth and kissed my temple while the flash went off.

The shelf was bare.

"Where are the photos?"

"The frames broke."

"All of them?"

"I knocked the shelf reaching for something."

"And the pictures?"

"Threw them out. Glass everywhere."

His jaw shifted. "You could've told me."

"You were in Shenzhen."

The silence stretched. Then his phone buzzed in his pocket. His whole face changed before he even pulled it out. The tension in his jaw loosened. His mouth softened at one corner.

He tapped the voice message.

"Hey — yeah, just got in." His voice dropped into that register. Warm. Easy. "No, the turbulence wasn't bad. You slept through the worst of it."

He walked out of the study. His laugh drifted back from the living room, low and unguarded.

The photos were not in the trash. They were stacked inside a kraft envelope in the bottom drawer of his office desk, his name written across the front in my handwriting. He'd find them eventually. On some ordinary afternoon when I was already gone and he reached for a file he didn't need.

I opened my laptop. The HR portal loaded slowly — the company servers always lagged after midnight. I navigated to the approval record and stared at it.

*Approved by: Elliott Shane.*

*Timestamp: 9:03 AM.*

*Comments: —*

I took a screenshot. Then another, capturing his electronic signature and the blank field side by side. I attached both to an email, typed my personal address into the recipient line, and hit send.

The clock read 11:59 PM.

Sixty-one hours until my flight.

From the living room, his voice murmured something I couldn't make out. Jade's name surfaced once, wrapped in that softness he saved for her.

I uncapped my red pen and drew a slow X through today's square on the calendar.

Two days left.