My eyes snapped open.
The ceiling above me wasn’t shadow, wasn’t dream. It was real. The same cracked paint, the faint scent of pine drifting through the half-open window. But everything looked sharper, brighter—like the world itself had been stripped bare of its lies.
I sat up slowly, the sheets clinging to my skin as if they, too, didn’t want to let go of the girl I used to be. My fingers trembled, but not from weakness. From power. From knowing.
I was no longer just Ella.
The quiet in my chest was gone, replaced by a steady hum that felt like a second heartbeat—Kate’s presence, pulsing with mine. Not an intruder. Not a burden. A mirror. A reminder.
For the first time in years, I didn’t feel like I was at war with myself.
And then, like gravity remembering its job, my thoughts fell
