[Sera]
The apartment is too quiet.
Not peaceful quiet. The kind of quiet that presses in on you, like the walls are holding their breath, waiting for something to explode. I sit at the dining table with a book open in front of me that I haven't read a single word of. I've been staring at the same paragraph for twenty minutes. The letters blur together. My pulse is a frantic little bird trapped in my throat.
Tonight is the first full moon since I signed my life away.
I keep telling myself it's just work. Like scrubbing toilets or dodging creepy customers on delivery runs. You do it, you get paid, you go home. Except there is no going home anymore. This is home. This gilded f*****g cage with its panoramic view of a city that doesn't give a s**t about girls like me.
The smart lock beeps.
