Ava’s POV
It was one of those slow Saturday mornings that felt borrowed. The city outside my windows moved the same as always, taxis, footsteps, someone talking loudly on a phone, but inside my little apartment the air was quieter, like the world had been turned down a notch. I told myself I would do the sensible things first: laundry, dusting, sorting the new fabric samples that had sat on my dining table for days. I needed my hands busy. When the mind is loud, the body keeping to small tasks makes the noise softer.
My apartment still wore the marks of my work: a stack of material swatches by the sofa, sketches tacked to the pinboard, a paint-sample fan fanned across the coffee table. I liked things to be ordered; it made the edges of my life feel less jagged. I washed the dishes slowly
