The rain hadn’t stopped by the time Sheila finally fell asleep.
It tapped relentlessly against her windows, a steady rhythm that felt less like weather and more like a countdown. She hadn’t meant to drift off on the couch, but exhaustion had pulled her under somewhere between rereading Carter’s press invitation and staring at Atticus’s message until the words blurred together.
I’m coming home. Don’t face this alone.
The sentence lingered in her mind even in sleep.
She woke abruptly to the sharp vibration of her phone against the glass coffee table. For a moment, disorientation wrapped around her like fog. The room was dim, the only light coming from the flickering reflection of streetlamps through rain-streaked windows.
Her neck ached. Her fingers were still loosely curled around the
