The apartment was too quiet.
Lila stood barefoot in the middle of her living room, the only light coming from the single lamp on the side table and the blue-white glow of her phone screen. The calendar app stared back at her: seven empty white squares stretching from tomorrow until next Sunday. Seven days. Seven nights.
Her thumb hovered over the screen, then tapped the first Monday square. She typed one word in the all-day event field.
**Him.**
She deleted it. Typed again.
**Someone.**
Better. No names. No expectations. No tomorrows.
She set the phone face-down on the coffee table like it might burn her and walked to the full-length mirror leaning against the wall. The woman looking back had dark circles under her eyes and hair that hadn’t seen a brush in two days, but the body—God
