For two weeks, nothing went wrong.
I kept waiting for it – the next detonation, the next anonymous post, the next 6 AM pounding on a door. Kept bracing every time my phone buzzed and exhaling when it was just Sienna sending memes or Miles asking what level he should unlock on his new game or the literary magazine editor confirming my next column deadline. Normal things. Safe things. The kind of notifications that belonged to a girl whose life wasn't a warzone.
My mom and I were talking again. Not easily – there were still silences that lasted too long and subjects we stepped around like furniture in a dark room. But she'd called twice that week. Asked about my classes. Asked about the column. Once, carefully, asked how Rhys was doing. She said his name like she was testing whether it wou
