The men I work with don’t know who I am. They see the suits, the silence, the way people clear a room before I walk in. But they don’t know the boy who watched his mother boil lentils by candlelight during blackout season. Or the boy who sold old phone parts on a plastic stool outside school to afford exam fees.

I built a life where nothing flickers. Where lights don’t cut out. Where nothing rusts or breaks or needs to be handed down.

I built it for her.

She didn’t ask. That’s the worst part. She walked into my life like she wasn’t a miracle. Like I wasn’t supposed to be undone by her voice, her laugh, her chipped nail polish and the way she lets her hair dry damp. She has no idea what she does to people like me.

I don’t care about the power anymore. I go to meetings like a man clocking in at a graveyard. Numbers, charts, fake smiles. I let them talk. I let them think I’m listening. I’m not. I’m thinking about what she had for breakfast. Whether she’s sleeping enough. Whether the bracelet I left on her table felt too much or not enough.

She lives in a one-bedroom flat she refuses to move out of. Says it has “charm.” It doesn’t. The tiles are old. The walls hold in heat. The fan clicks when it spins.

Tonight I stopped by after a late dinner meeting. She was in the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror. No music. Just the sound of the city outside her window. She was getting ready, brushing something across her cheeks with a tiny, half-cracked compact. The kind you get from a street stall or some drugstore bin.

I stood in the doorway. Didn’t move. Hands in my pockets. Light behind her cast this soft glow over her shoulder. Her hair was tied up. Neck bare. She didn’t see me watching. Or maybe she did. She’s good at pretending.

I should’ve said goodnight. Should’ve walked away.

But instead, I said — quietly — “You always look the most like yourself when you think no one’s watching.”

She froze for half a second. Not dramatic. Just… still. Then she kept going. Not a word. Not a glance. Just the brush, sweeping one last time across her cheek like my voice didn’t shift something in the room.

But I know her silence. And I know what it means.

She heard me. She always hears me.

Even when she pretends not to.