Ivy had sat quietly in her bedroom, thumb hovering over her mother’s contact photo for the third time that week following her conversation with Kai. Her mom’s smile radiated from the screen, genuine, simple, captured last summer at their annual barbecue when life still felt normal.
She almost hit call. Almost.
The questions were on the tip of her tongue. "Did you know? Did Dad? Is any of this real, or have I lost my mind?" But asking those questions would only worry them. It meant her mom would rush to book the next flight, and her dad would likely drive the entire eight hours from Oregon to New Orleans just to bring her home himself.
She locked her phone and set it face down on the nightstand.
Some conversations couldn't happen over a phone line.
In the first week, she tried to leave
