Ella had started leaving the apartment earlier each day, not because she had more places to be, but because staying inside felt like sitting on a hot stove. The longer she remained in those rooms, the more the silence burned. She could feel the ghost of Alex’s footsteps in every hallway, the way the floorboards creaked differently when he was near, the way the air shifted when he walked past her door without stopping. So she left. Coat on, scarf wrapped tight against the January wind, she slipped out before the sun had fully climbed the sky.
She walked the long way to the hospital. Past the deli with the broken neon sign, past the newsstand where the vendor always nodded at her like they shared a secret, past the park where old men played chess under bare trees. The cold helped. It made h
