The morning came in without softness.
Not stormy. Not dramatic. Just sharp in the way December mornings in New York sometimes were—light that didn’t warm anything, air that didn’t pretend to.
Lena woke before her alarm.
That alone told her something had already shifted.
She lay still for a moment, looking at the ceiling, listening to the quiet of Damien’s apartment around her. There was movement somewhere in the building—pipes adjusting, distant doors, the soft mechanical life of a place that never fully slept.
Beside her, the space in the bed was empty.
He was already up.
She didn’t reach for her phone immediately. She didn’t need to. Whatever yesterday had opened was still there, waiting, unchanged by sleep.
She got up.
The apartment was warm in that controlled way it always was
