It was a Tuesday, just another mind-numbing, paper-stack Tuesday. I sat at my desk, my eyes burning from staring at documents for too long, gnawing on a pen that had run out of ink. The air in my office was thick with the scent of stale coffee and filtered ventilation—the kind of smell that clings to your clothes and seeps into your bones, the smell of recycled air and quiet desperation.
Then I saw it. “Sophie” lighting up my phone on FaceTime.
I smiled instinctively. It was probably a vacation update. Maybe she’d show me a bracelet she’d bargained for, or some weird, colorful snack with a name I’d butcher trying to pronounce. The whole trip had been her idea—joining my parents, my brother Mark, and her cousins on a sightseeing break three states over.
