The elevator doors slid shut with a soft hiss.
Jessica caught her reflection in the mirrored wall, the same girl, but not quite. Her hair was slightly disheveled, her lipstick faintly smudged, her dress wrinkled. Yet it wasn’t the small imperfections that unsettled her.
It was her eyes.
They no longer looked like hers. There was something darker behind them now, not guilt, not exactly shame, but the quiet knowledge of something that could never be undone. A secret that would live there forever, no matter how well she smiled tomorrow.
She stared at herself for a long time.
You did what you had to do, she told herself. You survived.
But the words felt thin, fragile, like paper trying to hold back a flood.
The elevator chimed softly as it reached the ground floor.
She stepped out into
