Vaalerie's hand hovered over the door handle, her heart thudding in her chest. It wasn’t Michael’s voice that made her tense, nor the weight of his gentle touch. It wasn’t even the heavy air in the room, charged with the unspoken, the things they both knew but couldn’t say. It was the doorbell—a sound so ordinary and so jarring in that moment that it made her chest tighten all over again.
She opened the door quickly, forcing a calmness she didn’t feel, and there, standing on the doorstep, was a young man in a faded blue uniform. His cap was crooked, and his eyes were tired, but he wore a polite, practiced smile.
“Delivery for Valerie Lancaster,” he said, holding up a large, nondescript cardboard box, taped haphazardly at the edges. It looked as though it had been through a hundred differ
