I choose dark jeans, a soft ash-gray sweater, and the worn sneakers I know I can move fast in if I have to. In the bathroom mirror, I pause for a second, studying the faint bruise along my cheekbone. I dab concealer over it—not to erase it, not to pretend it didn’t happen, but to decide when it will be seen, and by whom. Control, even in small ways, feels new.
Upstairs, Ryan Carter is still asleep, one arm stretched across the bed like a man who believes the night has already been wiped clean, like nothing that happened in the kitchen could possibly survive into morning.
I move through the house with a calm that doesn’t feel like peace—it feels like purpose. Like the moment after a storm when everything is still, but the air is sharp and changed.
The coffee maker hums. The refrigerator light spills out when I open it. Eggs, butter, orange juice, the biscuit dough I picked up two days ago—back when I still thought this weekend would look normal. I line everything up on the counter and realize something unexpected.
My hands aren’t shaking.