Maeve’s POV
Selene and I sat by the riverbank again, the same flat stones beneath us, the same drifting water ahead, but today, I felt a little lighter.
Not happy. Not healed. But lighter.
Like grief had shifted from a raw wound to something manageable, something I could carry without it swallowing me whole.
I’d laughed again that morning, truly laughed when Selene tripped trying to hop a fence near the orchard, her skirts catching and sending her tumbling into a pile of hay.
She’d called it a “graceful dismount.” I’d called it karma.
Now, we sat in easy silence, basking in the soft rustle of wind through leaves and the trickle of the stream beside us.
“I missed this,” Selene said suddenly, twirling a blade of grass between her fingers. “Just... this. Being with someone who listens
