Damon himself was living on the far edge of the city in a cramped apartment he shared with Wade, working an entry-level inventory job for a regional supplier, earning a fraction of what he’d had, permanently barred from any managerial role in a compliance-regulated field.

The paper trail he thought no one would ever read had followed him all the way down.

He had emailed me, once, three months back — a long, winding message that blamed his old job’s pressures and wondered whether we might “talk over coffee, like reasonable adults.” I felt no anger reading it, and no thrill, and no pull to answer.

I selected it, deleted it, and blocked the address.