Sophia’s POV
The name left my lips before I could stop it.
It tasted strange.
Foreign.
Like a word that no longer belonged to me.
For a moment he simply stared at me, and I could see it clearly in his eyes.
Shock.
Not the kind someone feels when they bump into an acquaintance at a grocery store.
No.
This was the stunned look of a man who had spent years imagining a version of someone in his head… and suddenly found the real person standing in front of him.
“You look…” he started, then paused, studying my face like he was trying to solve a puzzle. “Different.”
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t trust my voice yet.
Three years.
Three whole years since I had seen him.
And yet standing here now, I could feel the ghost of the girl I used to be trying to crawl back into my skin.
The girl
