My Fingerprint Was Never Saved, but Her Lock Was Always Open Chapter 06

My Fingerprint Was Never Saved, but Her Lock Was Always Open Chapter 06

She hadn’t run away. She had made a clean, orderly retreat.

Gavin sat down on the couch, and his fingers brushed against a black hair tie wedged between the cushions.

She must have missed it while she was packing.

He held it in his hand for a long time before closing his fist around it.

After three years, the only thing Nora had left behind was a single black hair tie.

I stayed at the hotel for two days.

On the third morning, I interviewed at a design firm.

The interviewer was a woman in her thirties, the firm’s design director.

She flipped through several pages of my portfolio and nodded.

“Your work has a clean aesthetic. What made you leave your last job and relocate?”

I thought for a moment. “I needed a change of scenery.’

She didn’t press me. She closed the portfolio and said, “That’ll be all. We’ll be in touch next week.”

I stood and thanked her.

On my way out of the conference room, I passed through the open-plan office.

Someone carrying a coffee walked past me and casually asked, “You new here?”

Before I could answer, a coworker called them away.

The office was busy, and no one went out of their way to pay attention to anyone else.

To my surprise, I liked it.

The sun was shining when I stepped outside.

My phone buzzed with a text from HR.

HR: [You got the job. Your first day is next Monday.]

I stood on an unfamiliar street and read the message twice.

Gavin sat in Nora’s half-empty apartment.

The sunlight had shifted from the left side of the windowsill toward the center, casting a slanted band of light across the floor.

He began replaying everything that had happened over the past few days, starting with Nora’s fingerprint disappearing from its lock.

He remembered how calm she had sounded when she called him.

What had he been thinking at the time?

Vanessa was cooking, and he hadn’t wanted to upset her.

He hadn’t once wondered whether Nora was cold while she stood outside.

Then he remembered the weekend three months earlier at the hot-springs resort.

Vanessa had said, “Gavin, I ordered some wine. Let’s have it in the room.”

He had drunk it.

What happened afterward came rushing back when he closed his eyes.

Vanessa had been wearing his shirt, the collar hanging open and her hair still wet.

The box of condoms he had ordered sat open on the nightstand.

At the time, he had told himself it was the alcohol.

Now he understood that it wasn’t.

It was betrayal.

He had taken a shower, gotten dressed, and acted as though nothing had happened.

When he returned home, Nora had been cooking in the kitchen

She turned and asked, “Was the business trip exhausting?”

“Not really,” he had said.

Gavin opened Instagram and found Vanessa’s account.

Her post from the emergency room was still there.

One comment read:

[Gavin playing Prince Charming again?]

Vanessa had replied:

[He’s always been like that. Ever since we were kids.]

He stared at her reply for a long time before calling her.

“Was that asthma attackin the car real, or were you faking it?”

The other end of the line was silent for several seconds.

Then Vanessa began to cry.

“What is that supposed to mean, Gavin? I’ve dealt with this for over twenty years, and you’re seriously asking whether I faked it?”

Gavin said nothing.

On Monday morning, I reported to my new job.

Someone from HR showed me around, pointing out the restrooms, the break room, and the fire

extinguishers.

Finally, she led me to an empty workstation.

A woman with short hair sat at the desk beside mine.

“Hey, you must be the new hire. I’m Mia.”

“I’m Nora,” I said.

“Nice to meet you, Nora. Come to lunch with me. I’ll show you around.”

I sat down, placed my mug in the corner of the desk, and turned on the computer while I waited for IT to finish setting it up.

Mia had already put her headphones back on and returned to work, humming softly under her breath.

No one made a point of coming over to meet the new hire, but no one ignored me either.

The distance felt just right, neither too close nor too distant.