OLIVIA’S POV
I could not focus on the book.
I had tried. I had turned twelve pages and retained nothing. The words kept dissolving before they reached anywhere meaningful, replaced immediately by the same loop of thoughts I had been running since I woke up.
My father.
The surgery.
The specific helplessness of waiting for news you could not rush or control or fix with any amount of effort.
I set the book down and looked at the library ceiling.
I had thought about him every day since I moved into this house. That had not changed. But today felt different in a way I could not fully articulate. Heavier. More present. Like my body knew something my mind was still catching up to.
I got up.
I walked out of the library and through the ground floor and out of the front door into the compo
