Three women in my room before dawn.
Maren. Lillian. Lena. Each of them had hurt me in some way over the last weeks, and each of them had stayed anyway, and the dynamic between us this morning was honest rather than warm, which felt right in a way warmth alone would not have. Maren with nineteen years of withheld truth finally set down. Lillian with the compromised information that had nearly cost more than either of us wanted to remember. Lena with Damien's name, called once, in a moment that had set everything else in motion.
None of it was pretended away. All of it sat present in the room with us, acknowledged, and chosen not to be the thing that defined this particular morning.
Lillian did my hair.
My thick natural hair, finally let down, fully itself for the first time since I had
