The world outside didn’t exist.
At least, not for us. Not in here.
In here, it was just the steady hum of the motel air conditioner, the smell of cheap soap and old linens, the sound of our breaths colliding in the dark.
We didn’t talk about days or dates anymore. I wasn’t sure if it was Wednesday or Saturday or something in between. None of it mattered. All that mattered was the heat of Mark’s hands on my skin, the scrape of his stubble against my neck, the weight of his body anchoring me to a place where nothing could hurt us.
We had burned through grief. We had burned through guilt. Now we were just burning, endlessly, every night, every morning, every stolen hour in between.
I told myself it wasn’t madness. That it was survival.
But maybe it was both.
⸻
By the fifth day, our mo
