Morning comes without mercy.
It doesn’t ease in softly or ask for permission; it arrives with the same cold indifference it always does, dragging harsh light across the room as if the world hasn’t tilted on its axis. As if the night before didn’t leave invisible fingerprints on Amelia’s skin—faint but persistent, like bruises forming deep beneath the surface where no one can see them.
She wakes before her alarm, her heart already keeping a frantic, uneven beat.
Her eyes open to the ceiling, tracing the familiar cracks that form patterns she’s memorized over years of shared rent and quiet survival. For a heartbeat, she forgets. For a heartbeat, she is just Amelia, waking up in a small apartment with her best friend. Then, her chest tightens.
Her breath catches—not sharply enough to
