Layla's pov
The room was too quiet. That kind of quiet that creeps into your bones and settles behind your ribs like a ghost. I sat curled in the corner of the old velvet couch in the guest room of my grandmother’s countryside estate, legs tucked beneath me, eyes fixed on the fogged window. Outside, the trees stood tall and solemn, cloaked in a thick mist that clung to their limbs like forgotten secrets—just like the ones buried in the bones of this house… and in mine.
I hadn’t spoken to anyone in days. Not even Damian. He had texted. He knew me well enough to recognize when I was trying not to fall apart.
I needed the silence. I needed space to think, to breathe, to grieve in a way I never had permission to before.
After finding the journal in the attic—buried in a locked box under o
