Reza
The packhouse doesn’t celebrate.
I don’t know why I half-expected it to. Maybe some childish part of me imagined a release. Laughter spilling into the corridors, quiet congratulations murmured behind hands, some sign that the tension that had coiled for so long would finally snap loose.
Instead, when I wake the morning after Bethany’s leaving, the house feels… ordinary.
Too ordinary.
Doors open and close with a familiar rhythm. Footsteps echo along the halls in steady cadence. Somewhere below, someone laughs at something small and inconsequential. Coffee brews. Schedules are checked. Life continues.
Only one thing is missing.
And it’s startling how clean that absence feels.
Starla stirs beneath my ribs, slow and thoughtful.
- The pressure is gone, she tells me. But the space
