I was in the kitchen when she came out.
Coffee made, cup already in hand, standing at the counter looking at nothing in particular. The morning had the flat quality of a weekday that didn't have anything specific wrong with it — just ordinary, the light coming through the window at its usual angle, the city outside doing what it always did.
Maya came through in her work clothes, bag over one shoulder, phone in hand. She registered me at the counter without stopping and moved to the kettle.
"Early," she said.
"Couldn't sleep again."
She filled the kettle. Set it on the base. Stood beside me at the counter while it ran, close enough that we were both using the same stretch of surface without either of us having arranged it.
"How's the Harmon thing?" she asked.
"Submitted yesterday."
"Marcus happy?"
"He didn't complain."
"That's the same thing."
"Pretty much."
The kettle finished. She poured. Moved to the other end of the counter with her cup and leaned against it, looking at her phone briefly before setting it face-down.
We stood in the kitchen drinking our respective things and not talking, which was normal. Which was fine. The morning doing what mornings did.
***
"I have the Bellman edit today," she said.
"The difficult one?"
"They're all difficult." She turned the cup in her hands. "This one just argues about it more."
"What's the argument?"
"Structure." She paused. "He thinks the problem is structure. The problem isn't structure."
"What is it?"
She looked at her cup. "He doesn't know what he's trying to say."
I looked at the window. Outside, someone was crossing the street with the urgency of someone who'd misjudged the light.
"That's a hard edit," I said.
"Yeah."
She set her cup down. Picked it up again. Set it down in a slightly different position. I watched her do it without saying anything about it.
"Did you eat?" she asked.
"Not yet."
She opened a cabinet. Looked at it. Closed it. Opened the fridge with the expression of someone who already knew what was in it and was checking anyway. Closed that too.
"There's nothing good," she said.
"There's eggs."
"I know there's eggs."
She moved to the other side of the kitchen. Stood there for a moment. Then back toward the counter, without apparent purpose, the kitchen too small to pace in properly but her body trying anyway.
"I keep meaning to shop," she said.
"I can go later."
She looked at me then — briefly, the registering kind. "You don't have to."
"I know."
A pause. The kitchen settling around the end of a sentence that hadn't gone anywhere in particular.
***
"We should do something," she said. "Not just… this."
I looked at her. She was looking at the counter.
"Like what?" I said.
She lifted one shoulder. "I don't know. Go out somewhere. Or something."
I looked at my cup. The coffee was still warm. I turned the cup once in my hand, the way she'd been doing earlier.
"We could," I said.
The specific flatness of an answer that had taken the shape of agreement without being one. Maya heard it too. I could tell by the way she didn't respond immediately, the way she picked up her cup and looked at it.
"Okay," she said.
A moment passed.
"You don't want to?" she asked.
"I didn't say that."
She looked at me then — longer than the brief kind, something more considered in it. I held it for a moment and then looked at the counter.
"It just didn't sound like you wanted to," she said.
"I'm just—" I stopped. Picked up my cup. Set it down.
She waited. Not with the patient waiting she sometimes did — just stood there holding her cup, looking at the side of my face while I looked at the counter.
"I don't know," I said.
She nodded. Once. The kind that absorbed something without confirming anything.
She turned back to the counter. Adjusted the cup she'd set down. Moved it an inch to the left and then back again.
"It's fine," she said. "It was just a thought."
"It's not that I don't—"
"Adrian." Not sharp. Just even. "It's fine."
I looked at her. She was looking at the counter. After a moment she picked up her phone and checked it, and the conversation settled into silence.
She put her phone down after a while.
"The Bellman call is at eleven," she said.
"Okay."
"He'll probably want to push it. He always wants to push it."
"What do you do when he does?"
"Tell him the timeline is fixed." She leaned against the counter. "Which it is. He just forgets."
"Every time?"
"Every time." She picked up her cup. Drank the last of it. Set it in the sink. "It's not malicious. He just doesn't retain things he doesn't want to retain."
"Useful skill."
"Terrible skill." She turned the tap on briefly, rinsed the cup, turned it off. "Makes everything harder."
I watched her dry her hands on the towel by the sink. She turned around and leaned against the counter again, the same position as before, as if the movement hadn't happened.
"You should eat something," she said.
"I will."
"Before you go in. Not at your desk."
"I know."
She looked at me for a moment with the expression she used when she'd decided not to push something. Then she picked up her bag from where she'd left it by the door.
"Let me know if you want to do something later," she said. Casually.
I looked at her.
"Yeah," I said.
One beat late. Maybe two.
She nodded. Picked up her keys. Left.
***
I stood in the kitchen after the door closed and listened to the building settle back into its usual quiet. My cup was still on the counter. The coffee had gone cold.
I picked it up. Put it in the sink. Stood there for a moment with the tap off and nothing running.
My phone buzzed on the counter.
I looked at it.
A message. My mother.
Adrian — haven't heard from you or Maya in a while. Come home when you can, both of you.