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Yeah, no, I'm fine.

I said it three times on the call.

The third time I was looking at the ceiling

and the ceiling just did its ceiling thing.

I put the phone face-down after

and the light bled orange through the gap

between the glass and the counter tile,

that particular orange of something still running

after you've decided to stop.

Then I opened the notes app and typed:

I am not doing well.

I needed you to ask again.

I don't know how to be the one who says this first.

Then I locked the screen.

Forty minutes in the dark.

The refrigerator cycling on,

the building settling into itself the way buildings do,

and me just sitting there

with a note in my pocket

that nobody's going to read.