დ Elara დ
The office smelled of paper and dust, with a faint hint of old ink. My desk was a mess: receipts from last week’s grape deliveries, a stack of order forms that needed my signature, and the ledger I had been pretending to read for the last twenty minutes. If I kept my head down, if I focused hard enough on numbers and schedules, maybe I could convince myself that life was normal again. But it wasn’t. Every time I let my eyes lose focus, I saw him. Not just his face, the whole shape of him. The way he would lean in the kitchen doorway with his arms crossed. The way he would study the vines like they were an equation he could solve if he looked long enough. And his eyes, the way they could be sharp one moment and soft the next. I hated missing him. It felt stupid and reckless, but
