Olivia wakes in a half-lit, silent apartment. The air is cold, gray, and flat, like a sheet pulled tightly over something restless underneath. She hasn’t truly slept. Not after the night before, not after lying awake for hours with the same four thoughts rotating through her mind in relentless, frictionless orbit: the group text, the fence, the hotel in Nashville, and the photograph.
But this time, the pieces don’t drift apart. They lock into place. They become a shape.
She doesn’t move for a long time. She lies perfectly still, listening for the first signs of Adrian stirring down the hall. Her eyes track the ceiling, then the open bedroom door, then the thin slice of kitchen visible through it. She can see the refrigerator from here, just the corner, and the upper edge of the ultrasoun
