NICHOLAS’S POV
As much as everyone is happy, the trauma was still there. Behind every smiling, giggling and happy face, their faces told a different story only silence would tell.
Was it Ava’s? The kids? I could see it all; behind their smiles.
Like an awareness, a heaviness, a breath you’re holding without realizing, just in case something happens again.
That’s what our home felt like now.
Every hallway, every room, every corner held the echoes of what we almost lost.
The laughter that used to bounce off the walls had returned, but it was more careful. Delicate.
Like, even joy was trying to learn how to be itself again.
And I—? I was trying to learn how to breathe again. It started with little things.
Ivy ran into my study to show me a drawing.
A terrible one stick figure w
