Aurora's POV
I get up sometime before dawn, my legs unsteady under me, and cross to the bathroom on my own for the first time in three days.
I flip the light on and the mirror shows me someone I don't recognize. My face has gone grey and hollow, the skin pulled tight over bone in a way it never used to be. My eyes are swollen almost shut, rimmed red raw from crying, the whites gone pink and glassy. My hair hangs in a matted rope over one shoulder.
I stare at it for a long moment.
Then I start laughing.
It comes up out of nowhere, ugly and helpless, doubling me over the sink, and I can't stop it once it starts, my whole body shaking with it, tears sliding down my face at the same time, the two things tangled so tight together I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. I laugh un
