I wake up the next morning with a crick in my neck and no memory of how I got to the bedroom. The unicorn pajamas are soft against my skin, and the sheets smell like lavender. Lucas has probably adjusted the thermostat to exactly the right temperature before he left for the night.
The bed is enormous. The kind of bed that could host a small nation and still have room for diplomatic negotiations. I lie there for a long moment, watching the morning light stream through the windows and turn everything gold. It should feel inviting. Instead, it feels like a stage where I'm an actress playing the role of a woman who lives here.
Yesterday's exploration was a disaster. The sauna I don't use. The cinema I don't watch. The shoe room that contains hundreds of shoes I've probably never worn. The bathtub large enough to drown a horse. I wandered through my own home like a tourist in a museum, touching nothing and understanding nothing.
Now I have a new mission. I need clothes.
The hospital sent me home in borrowed gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt that says PROPERTY OF ST. MARY'S HOSPITAL in faded blue letters. It's comfortable and simple and the most honest thing I've worn since waking up. But I can't wear hospital clothes forever. Eventually, I'll have to face the wardrobe of the woman I used to be.
I stand up and walk toward the door Lucas pointed out yesterday. The walk-in closet. He said it with a straight face, like that was an adequate description for what is probably another small nation behind that door.
I open it. The lights turn on automatically with a soft, flattering glow.
The closet is the size of a department store. Racks and racks of clothing stretch into the distance, organized by some system I can't begin to understand. By color first, then by type, then by something else entirely—something that probably made sense to the old Vivian.
I step inside. My bare feet meet cool hardwood that smells like cedar and expensive floral candles. The air is perfectly climate-controlled and completely still. Like even the atmosphere has been optimized for efficiency.
I approach the first rack.
Black.
Every single item is black. Blazers and trousers and skirts and dresses. Different fabrics and different cuts, but all the same absence of color. Like I've been dressing for my own funeral for years and wanted to be prepared for every possible variation of grief.
The next rack is white. Crisp blouses and button-downs and silk tops that hang in perfect rows. Starched and pressed and waiting for a woman who apparently only wears white when she's not wearing black. They look like they've never been touched by human skin.
The next rack is gray. Charcoal and dove and steel. Fifty shades of nothing. Pencil skirts and tailored jackets that scream boardroom and whisper nothing else about the woman who wears them.
I keep walking. Black. White. Gray. Black. White. Gray. No patterns anywhere. No florals or stripes or polka dots. Nothing whimsical or playful. Nothing that suggests the woman who wore these clothes ever laughed so hard she snorted, or danced in her living room, or ate ice cream straight from the tub.
I stop at a rack of black blazers. Identical in every way. Same cut, same fabric, same buttons. At least twelve of them hanging in a row like soldiers awaiting inspection.
"Why would anyone need twelve identical black blazers?" I ask the empty closet.
No one answers.
I pull one off the rack. The fabric is soft and substantial. The stitching is perfect. The lining is silk. This blazer probably costs more than some people's monthly rent, and I have twelve of them.
I put it back and keep walking. Past the shoes organized by heel height and color. Past the bags that sit on illuminated shelves like museum artifacts. Past the scarves and belts and watches. I open one drawer of jewelry and close it immediately because it feels too intimate—like reading someone else's diary.
And then, at the very back of the closet, shoved behind a row of identical black heels like something shameful, I see it.
A flash of color.
Bright. Obnoxious. Completely unapologetic pink.
I push aside the heels and reach into the shadows. My fingers close around fabric so soft and worn it feels like a second skin. I pull it out and hold it up to the light.
It's the pajama set from yesterday. Covered in unicorns. Pink unicorns with purple manes and sparkly silver horns that prance across the fabric like they own it. Some are smiling. Some are winking. All of them are absolutely, gloriously ridiculous.
I found these yesterday, but I didn't really look at them. I didn't let myself feel what they meant. Now I stand in this cold, perfect closet and press the soft, worn fabric to my face. It smells like vanilla and something else I can't name. Comfort, maybe. Safety.
There's a small brown stain on one sleeve. Coffee or chocolate. Something that says this was loved by someone who spills things and laughs about it. The sticky note is still attached to the collar. Messy, loopy handwriting.
For emergency cuddles. — Sophie.
Sophie. The name from Lucas's briefings. The friend who visits occasionally. The one who gave me these ridiculous, wonderful pajamas that the old Vivian buried in the back of her closet like a secret she was ashamed of.
I don't remember Sophie. I don't remember receiving these pajamas. I don't remember the emergency that required cuddles. But my body remembers something my mind can't access. Standing here in this cold, perfect closet full of funeral clothes, clutching a pair of unicorn pajamas to my chest, I feel more like myself than I have since waking up in that hospital bed.
I put them on.
They're two sizes too big. The sleeves hang past my wrists. The pants pool around my ankles. They are absolutely perfect.
I look at myself in the full-length mirror. The woman staring back is still polished and sharp, but softer now. Wrapped in unicorns and worn cotton and the evidence of someone else's care.
I'm still looking at my reflection when I hear the knock.
Three sharp raps. Precise. Professional.
"Ms. Chen. I have your breakfast."
Lucas.
I walk to the closet door and open it. He's standing in the bedroom doorway with a tray in his hands. Steam rises from a coffee cup. There's toast and fruit and something that looks like oatmeal but probably costs more than oatmeal should.
He looks at me.
His eyes go to the unicorn pajamas.
He freezes so completely I'm not sure he's still breathing.
For three full seconds, Lucas Grey does not move or blink or exist in any observable way. His perfect posture remains perfect. His expression remains unreadable. But his left ear turns a shade of pink I've never seen before. Deeper and softer and more vulnerable than the usual embarrassment.
"Ms. Chen," he says. His voice is perfectly steady. "Your breakfast."
I look down at my pajamas, at the unicorns prancing across my chest. "Sophie gave them to me. For emergency cuddles."
His other ear turns pink now, joining the first. "I am aware."
"You knew about the unicorn pajamas."
"I know about everything, Ms. Chen. It is my job."
"Of course it is."
He still hasn't looked at me directly. His eyes are fixed somewhere in the vicinity of my left shoulder. His ears are crimson now.
"Would you like me to set the tray on the bed?" he asks.
"Yes. Thank you."
He walks to the bed and sets the tray down with surgical precision. His movements are careful and economical and completely devoid of any acknowledgment that I exist in unicorn pajamas.
"Will there be anything else, Ms. Chen?"
I smile. Watching Lucas Grey be completely undone by a pair of unicorn pajamas is the most human thing I've experienced since waking up.
"No, Lucas. Thank you."
He nods once. Sharp. Precise.
But as he turns to leave, I catch the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile—but so close.
And his ears are still pink.
I sit on the edge of my enormous bed and pick up the coffee cup. Oat milk latte with an extra shot and light foam. Exactly the way I apparently like it. I take a sip and look out at the city glittering below me.
Somewhere out there, Sophie Chen is waiting with her messy handwriting and her emergency cuddles. I need to find her. I need to figure out who I am before I become someone who owns twelve identical black blazers and feels nothing.
But first, breakfast. And coffee. And a moment to sit in these ridiculous, wonderful pajamas and feel like a person instead of a portrait.
Tomorrow, I'll start searching for Sophie.
Today, I'll let the unicorns do their work.