Back at the apartment, I didn’t talk. Didn’t think.
I moved.
Keys. Lock. Shoes off. Alarm system set.
My body was tense, humming under the surface like it hadn’t quite remembered it was safe again.
I went straight to the bathroom—my sanctuary in this new space. White marble countertops. Rain-scented candle already half-melted. The bath? Oval, oversized, and deep enough to drown in—but in a good way.
It had become my ritual. One I hadn’t had back then.
I started the water. Dropped in my eucalyptus bath bomb. Dimmed the lights until they were barely more than a soft hum on the tile.
Steam started curling into the air, and my breath followed. Long. Shaky. Human.
Then I saw it.
The mirror. The scars.
Raised. Brutal. Permanent.
A roadmap of survival no one asked for.
I stepped close
