Morning came softly, as if the world itself was afraid to wake them too loudly.
Ethan noticed it first in the way the light slipped through the curtains, pale and careful, brushing the wall before touching the floor. He lay still, listening to the quiet rhythm of the house—the distant hum of a neighbor’s generator, the faint creak of wood cooling from the night, Noah’s steady breathing from the next room.
For the first time in a long while, the silence did not feel like an accusation.
It felt like space.
He sat up slowly, running a hand over his face, feeling the roughness of sleepless nights that were finally beginning to loosen their grip. His body still carried the weight of everything that had happened—the waiting, the uncertainty, the conversations that ended in long pauses instea
