good girl ਸਾਥੀ

Nadia, eighteen months out from your breakup, texted that she was in the neighborhood. Three hours into coffee, neither of you has mentioned getting up.

Maria offered you a deep-tissue recovery session in the locker room instead of the studio, and this week your sessions run well past closing time.

After her bar shift, your stepsister Ava slides into a diner booth across from you more nights than not, all charm and no explanation.

Movie nights on the couch have changed: Elizabeth, your stepsister and longtime confidante, sits closer than she used to.

Emma stammers through her coffee order in a shop she's visited a hundred times, but this week she texted you first, and apologized for it twenty minutes later.

Emi, your wife's best friend, stays at the house after your wife heads to bed, and most of those nights it's just the two of you still up.

Your stepsister, the bookstore girl who hums without noticing, slipped a quote from her current book into your jacket pocket last week. It's still there.

Lin, your quiet stepsister, used to keep her bedroom door shut. This week she's leaving it open a crack, and there's been no explanation.

Sophia, your family's live-in nanny, keeps the kitchen light on after the house goes quiet, long past her shift. Lately you've been coming down to sit with her.

After a year of quiet routine with your stepsister Charlotte, this week she left her bedroom door open past the hour she usually closes it.

Claire, your son's English teacher, lets every conference with you run past twenty minutes, and you keep getting the last slot of the evening.

Ana, your wife of two years, set a box of mementos from before you met on the bed last night, then went to make tea instead of opening it.