POV: Violet
The hospital cafeteria buzzed around me, voices rising and falling in a messy symphony of trays, coffee cups, and clattering cutlery. Nurses laughed at a corner table. Residents argued over lab results. Someone’s pager went off.
It was ordinary. Comfortably ordinary.
But inside me, nothing was ordinary anymore.
Kendra sat across from me, sipping her iced latte with the kind of nonchalance only she could muster. She studied me over the rim of her cup, eyes sharp, too perceptive.
“You’ve been stirring that soup for twenty minutes,” she finally said.
I blinked down at the bowl in front of me. The broth was a pale swirl, long gone lukewarm. I hadn’t taken a single bite.
“Not hungry,” I muttered.
Kendra set her cup down with a thud. “Not hungry? Violet Grey, the woman who ke
