(Hailey Miller POV)
The journey was long. Or maybe it wasn’t. In that tense darkness, time stopped having shape. Minutes stretched and collapsed until I no longer knew if we had been driving for hours or seconds.
We moved through streets that looked abandoned, corners swallowed by shadows. A closed coffee shop appeared, its dark windows flashing me an image so sharp it felt like a knife: Ethan laughing with a cup in his hand, steam curling into the air. Me beside him, a scarf tied in my hair, pregnant with Caleb, debating crib colors and baby names as if the future had been ours to design. The memory hit me like a betrayal. I shut my eyes, but the ache lingered.
On the next block, I saw a woman pushing a stroller, a grocery bag hanging heavy from her arm. What kind of life kept her out
