* Jana *
The night after his confession, sleep did not come. My body lay still, but my mind raged, replaying every word, every photograph, every jagged truth Lawrence had pressed into my hands. By morning, my chest ached as if something inside had been hollowed out.
I went to the office earlier than usual, when the building was still hushed and the world outside was waking with a sluggish gray. My hands trembled as I slid a blank sheet of paper into the printer. It felt almost archaic, the sound of keys clacking against silence, but maybe that was fitting. Resignation wasn't something to be whispered. It needed finality, permanence.
Lawrence,
I wrote his name without thinking, my pulse faltering as though even his name carried weight.
Every word after that came slow, deliberate. I can
