POV: Violet
Sleep didn’t come.
It hadn’t for days, but that night was worse. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my mother’s fragile body beneath the white sheets, her chest rising like the tide—slow, uncertain, terrifyingly fragile.
Every beep of the machines echoed in my skull like a countdown.
And then there was them.
Ryan’s storm.
John’s anchor.
Two forces pulling at me until I felt like a rope stretched too thin, one tug away from snapping.
I tried to bury myself in the mundane: washing my hands three times, scrubbing my skin raw, rearranging the books on my nightstand. But everything reminded me of them. The coffee cup John had left on my counter two days ago when he’d insisted on walking me home. The leather jacket Ryan had draped over my shoulders last week after a late shif
