Programmed To Keep

Murderer.

The word doesn’t echo. It just… arrives. A thick, oily stain in the dead quiet of the room. My room. My cavernous, fucking empty room.

I bolt upright, my heart trying to punch its way out of my ribs, the thousand-thread-count sheets pooling around my waist like a trap. The air is cold. It’s always cold in here. My breath plumes in front of my face, a ghost in the moonlight.

I’m alone.

Of course I’m alone.

The other side of the king-sized bed is a vast, undisturbed sea of white linen. So much space. So much goddamn empty space you could land a helicopter on it.

My father’s voice. In the dream, it had been so clear. Not a memory, fuzzy at the edges. It was like he was standing right there in the dark, spitting that word at me, his breath smelling like whiskey and disappointment.

Shit.

My bare feet hit the cold, imported wood of the floor and I don’t make a sound. I never do. I’m a phantom in my own mausoleum. I drift to the window, a floor-to-ceiling plate of bulletproof glass that looks out over the gardens. The moonlight paints everything silver. The roses, perfectly pruned. The stone pathways, artfully laid. The manicured, obsessive-compulsive perfection of it all. It’s beautiful. So beautiful it makes my teeth ache.

I press my forehead against the glass. It’s like ice against my skin, a welcome shock that does fuck-all to numb the hollowness inside. A sickness. A weight in my gut that never, ever goes away.

You could scream in this house and the sound would get swallowed whole before it ever reached another room.

Sometimes, I really want to try.

The sun is just starting to bleed over the horizon when I finally give up on sleep. The kitchen is downstairs, a stainless-steel temple to a god of cuisine who never visits. It’s state-of-the-art. Gleaming. A dozen different kinds of knives I don’t know how to use, a refrigerator that could feed a small army, and an oven smart enough to do my taxes. It’s mostly untouched. Except for my morning ritual.

That’s the game I play. It’s the only one I know how to win.

I pull my hair back, wash my hands, and get to work. I don’t just make breakfast. I construct it. An architectural feat of poached eggs on brioche with prosciutto and a chive hollandaise.

The eggs have to be perfect. I crack them into individual fine-mesh strainers, letting the loose, watery whites drip away, leaving only the firm, cohesive parts. A splash of white vinegar in the simmering water. A gentle swirl to create a vortex. I slip the eggs in one by one, my focus lasered in on the way the whites wrap around the yolk, forming a perfect, tight sphere. Not a second too long, not a second too short.

While they cook, I slice the prosciutto paper-thin. I toast the brioche to the exact shade of pale gold.

Then the sauce.

Hollandaise is a bitch. It breaks if you look at it wrong. Egg yolks, lemon juice, a pinch of cayenne. I whisk them over a double boiler, my arm starting to burn from the constant motion. Slowly, so slowly, I drizzle in the clarified butter. Hot, but not too hot. The mixture starts to thicken, to emulsify. It turns from a thin, sad yellow to a pale, creamy, glorious sauce. The texture is like velvet.

I plate it like a fucking artist. The golden brioche. The delicate prosciutto draped just so. The perfect, wobbly poached egg. Then I spoon the hollandaise over the top, letting it cascade down the sides. A final sprinkle of chives, chopped so fine they’re like green dust.

A masterpiece for one.

I carry the single plate to the dining room. The table is a massive slab of polished mahogany that seats twenty. I place my perfect breakfast at the head of the table, right where he used to sit. The morning light streams in through the bay windows, hitting the perfect white plate, the perfect yellow sauce, the perfect green garnish. An offering to the god of This Is Fine.

And then I walk away.

I leave it there. I don’t take a single bite.

This is my power. This small, pointless, perfect act of creation and denial. It’s the only thing in this whole damn house that I’m in charge of.

As I’m leaving the dining room, a ghost of my own appears in the hallway.

“Good morning, Miss Sterling.”

Mrs. Gable. She’s been the housekeeper here since before I was born. A small, bird-like woman with gray hair pulled into a tight, severe bun and an expression that hasn’t changed in thirty years. She’s part of the furniture. A silent witness to the entire train wreck of my life.

“Morning, Mrs. Gable,” I murmur, not quite meeting her eyes.

She glances at the plate on the table, her expression unreadable. She’s seen this ritual a thousand times. She never comments.

“Will you be requiring lunch today, miss?”

“No. Thank you.” I never do.

“Very good, miss.” She gives a slight, almost imperceptible nod and continues on her silent way, her duster tracing the lines of the wainscoting.

She probably knows where all the bodies are buried. She probably heard the shouting matches, the thrown glasses, the long, ugly silences that were somehow worse. She saw my father wither into a bitter, whiskey-soaked ghost after my mother died giving birth to me. She saw me grow up into a ghost right alongside him.

She knows everything. And we talk about the weather.

My home office is the one room that feels remotely mine, probably because it’s where I try to undo the damage my family name has done to the world. The charitable foundation. My penance. My quiet, desperate attempt to prove that our money, his money, can be washed clean.

Today, it’s a new wing for a domestic violence shelter in Oregon. I’m on a video call with the architect, a kind-faced man named David who has no idea who he’s really talking to. To him, I’m just a name on a letterhead with a nine-figure bank account.

I’ve got my professional mask on. I’m calm, articulate, decisive. We’re going over blueprints, talking about material costs and building codes. It’s easy. It’s numbers. It’s blessedly impersonal.

“…and the main challenge,” he’s saying, scrolling through the specs on his screen, “is the safe rooms. The requirements you sent over are very specific. Reinforced walls, six-inch soundproofing, independent ventilation, shatterproof windows…”

I nod, my face a mask of cool control. “They need to be cocoons. Places where the outside world can’t get in. Not the sounds, not the fear. Nothing.”

“Absolutely,” he agrees, making a note. “We’ll make sure they’re… well, safe.”

That word.

Safe.

Something cracks. Right down the middle of my carefully constructed composure. My throat closes up. It feels like a fist is squeezing my larynx.

My voice, when it comes out, is a raw, scraped whisper I don’t even recognize.

“They have to be,” I breathe, and the sound is wet. Humiliating. “They have to be a place where… where you can’t hear him yelling anymore. A place where you can’t hear things breaking.”

The words are out before I can stop them. A raw, bloody piece of my own story, laid bare for a complete stranger.

David’s professional face flickers. Surprise. Confusion. And then, the one I hate most of all. Pity. That soft, gentle, fucking pity that makes me want to crawl out of my own skin.

I can’t breathe.

“I have to go,” I manage, and I slam the laptop shut before he can say another word, cutting off his concerned face mid-sentence.

The screen goes black, reflecting my own horrified face back at me. Shaking. Pathetic. Fucking pathetic.

The rest of the day is a wash. I cancel my other calls. I roam the house, from one empty room to the next, the silence pressing in on me. The storm that’s been threatening all day finally breaks in the late afternoon, lashing rain against the windows in angry sheets. The house groans around me, the sounds of it settling like an old man’s bones.

I end up curled in a window seat in the library, the one place that feels almost warm. The storm is a show outside, all thunder and dramatic flashes of lightning. I’m scrolling aimlessly on my tablet, just another way to turn my brain off. News sites. Fashion blogs. Celebrity gossip. Numb, numb, numb.

And then I see it.

It’s just a banner ad at the bottom of a page. Sleek. Minimalist. Silver text on a black background.

Tired of being alone? Find the one who was made for you. Eternal Companions.

My finger hesitates. It’s stupid. It’s probably some high-tech dating service for billionaires. But I click it. I don’t know why. I just do.

The website is… elegant. All soft grays and testimonials. Story after story from people who sound just as lonely as I feel.

“He’s my shield. The first night there was a thunderstorm, he just held me until it passed. He didn’t say a word. He just held me.”

“I’ve never felt so safe. He sees the ugly parts of me, the scared parts, and all he wants to do is protect them.”

“It’s like he was built from my own dreams. He knows what I need before I even have to ask. A hand to hold. A quiet presence in an empty house. A voice that never, ever raises.”

My heart starts to hammer against my ribs. A frantic, hopeful rhythm I haven’t felt in years. A spark. A real, actual spark in the cold, dead ash of my life.

I keep reading, my breath catching in my throat. I find the “How It Works” page. The science. The customization. Biosynthetic androids. Personality mapping. The promise of a partner designed from the ground up to be your perfect sanctuary. A hand that will only ever be gentle. A presence that will never leave. A love that is guaranteed.

My trembling finger finds its way to the top of the page. To a single, gleaming silver button.

Begin Application.

I just stare at it. My finger hovers over the screen.

This is crazy.

This is desperate. The most pathetic thing I’ve ever considered. Buying a friend. Buying a protector. Programming a person to love me because no real one ever could.

But as the thunder cracks outside and the house feels bigger and emptier and colder than ever, one thought cuts through all the others.

This might be my last chance to ever feel like I can breathe again.

My finger taps the screen.