The apartment felt impossibly small and impossibly familiar at the same time, its chipped doorframe and faint smell of detergent and old coffee wrapping around Lena like a memory she had nearly lost, and the moment she stepped inside and saw her sister standing frozen at the entrance, disbelief written across her face, something inside Lena finally broke beyond repair.
Lana didn’t even speak at first; she simply crossed the space between them in one long stride and pulled Lena into her arms with such force that it knocked the breath from her lungs, and then they were both crying, the kind of sobbing that came from somewhere deep and primal, their bodies shaking as if all the fear and terror and unanswered questions of the past weeks had decided to surface at once.
Lena clutched her siste
