The cup first fell from his right hand. Then the other. The sound of the plastic hitting the floor seemed distant, almost too polite for what had just happened. The cafeteria glass was cracked but still standing. On the other side, the street was no longer a street. It was dust. It was people running. It was something unrecognizable.Paul didn't hear the screams.
He didn't hear the alarm. He didn't hear his own name being called by someone behind the counter.He only saw.Where there had once been her body, there was debris.
Concrete. Fragments. A piece of twisted metal. His brain refused to accept the image. It kept searching for the smile. It kept waiting for her to get up laughing, saying it was just a scare.He took a step forward. The cafeteria door seemed farther away than it should be. The world was slow, thick, as if the air had turned to water. He pushed the door and left.
Dust invaded his lungs, but he didn't cough. He didn't blink.He walked to the spot where she had been seconds before. Every step was mechanical. There was no thought. There was no clear emotion. It wasn't hatred. It wasn't despair. It wasn't guilt.It was just the image of her smiling at him through the glass.A firefighter tried to hold him back. He broke free.
A police officer said something. He didn't hear. Someone touched his shoulder. He kept walking.Then he saw.Not the impact. Not the blood. Not the brutal detail.He only saw a piece of the dress she was wearing that morning. The same one she had chosen because it was "too simple for a billionaire," as she had joked.The world started to come back in waves of sound.
Sirens. People crying. Screams. Helicopters.But inside him, it was still silent.He knelt down. Not because his legs failed. But because that was the last position where he could still pretend he was close to her.Someone pulled him back. He resisted. Not with fury. Not with screams.
Just with the weight of his own body.— Sir, it's dangerous! — someone said.He didn't answer.Two police officers held him by the arms. He tried to free himself. Not to run away. To go back. To take one more step. To diminish the distance that was now infinite.They dragged him away from the debris. He fought. Not like someone desperate. But like someone who hadn't yet understood that he had already lost.Her name echoed somewhere. Not in his mouth. In his mind.Angella.
He didn't cry.And that was what scared the most those who were watching.Because when a man loses everything and doesn't cry, something inside him has already begun to die too.They let him go when they realized he wouldn't run.Paul stood alone.Dust slowly settled on his shoulders, on his dark suit, on his naturally gray hair. The world around was still chaos, but inside him, there was only an absolute emptiness.Someone was talking to him. Questions. Full name.
Emergency contact.He answered.Steady voice.Cold.Polite.As if confirming data for a business meeting.Inside, nothing.No tears.No trapped screams.No immediate revolt.Just silence.That night, in front of the mirror in his New York apartment, he finally saw himself.His blue-gray eyes, which once shone when she laughed, now looked clearer. No longer alive — clear as ice.It wasn't the redness of crying.It was absence.His hair, already silver since adolescence, seemed even paler under the cold bathroom light. Almost white. As if the last shade of youth had been drained.He ran his hand through the strands slowly.
No reaction.James was on the other room on the phone, organizing flights, security, communication with her family.Paul turned off the bathroom light.He stayed in the dark.And there he understood something he couldn't put into words:He was still breathing.But something essential had stopped.At the funeral days later, everyone was crying.Her mother was falling apart.Her father tried to maintain composure.College friends were sobbing.Paul remained beside the closed coffin.Motionless.The tailored black suit fit perfectly.Impeccable posture.
Eyes fixed ahead.Some whispered about how strong he was.It wasn't strength.It was emptiness.When her mother hugged him, he responded.When they said she would be "in a better place," he nodded.When asked to say something, he politely refused.He didn't trust his own voice.Because he knew that if he spoke, no pain would come out.Nothing would come out.And nothing is much more frightening.That afternoon, under the gray sky, someone commented that his eyes seemed different.More cold.More distant.As if death had passed through him…and decided to leave him for later.But had taken everything else.