Chapter 5 · Continued
Recall
The engine started.
Just like that, the truck pulled away.
Jane stood on the porch and watched it disappear.
There was something she should have said.
Something important.
She couldn’t find it.
The driveway was empty again.
The house behind her felt different.
Jane slowly turned and looked inside.
Seymour sat on the couch.
Waiting.
The next couple of days felt… off.
Not wrong.
Just dull.
The house was quieter—not in sound, but in everything else.
Jane followed the same routine she always had.
Coffee. Work. Small things that filled the hours.
Everything functioned.
It simply didn’t feel the way it used to.
Cam had made her laugh more than she had realized at the time.
Now there was nothing.
It caught her off guard how noticeable his absence was.
One afternoon, Jane stopped in the kitchen and leaned against the counter.
Thinking.
Cam hadn’t said goodbye.
She frowned. “…Of course he didn’t.”
Why would he?
Saying goodbye would mean that he understood what was happening.
What it meant.
Jane released a quiet breath.
Maybe she had imagined it—that sense that there was something more inside him.
Something behind those illuminated eyes.
But there wasn’t.
Only responses.
Patterns.
Tasks.
That was all it had ever been.
So why did it feel as though something had been taken from her?
Jane pushed away from the counter and tried to shake it off.
Seymour sat on the couch, watching her.
Waiting.
She walked over and sat beside him. When Jane reached out, he leaned into her hand and began purring almost immediately.
“Yeah,” she murmured, scratching behind his ears. “I know.”
Seymour moved closer and settled against her.
Jane stared ahead.
The house was the same.
It just didn’t feel like it.
Jane left her laptop open on the table while she made coffee.
It had become a habit.
Cam used to stand beside it while it booted, watching the screen as though something interesting might happen if he stared at it long enough.
Now it simply sat there.
Waiting.
The coffee maker clicked softly as it finished. Jane poured herself a cup and stared through the window while steam curled from the mug.
The yard was still.
Quiet.
Normal.
She turned toward the table and stopped.
The laptop screen was on.
It wasn’t displaying the login screen or waking from sleep.
It was fully on.
A blank document filled the screen, its cursor blinking in the upper corner.
Jane frowned. “I didn’t…”
She moved closer and set down her coffee without thinking.