SERAFINA
Not from him though.
Not right then either.
A few minutes later when I snapped from what felt like hypnosis.
I walked back to my room, and went back to bed, phone in hand, pretending I could sleep.
The message came at 6:04 a.m.
No salutations, no name. Just a photo.
The headline didn’t hit me. It was the kind people skip—Anonymous Donation from Richard’s boards. But there was a date on it.
That date.
Because I knew it, it was the same one as the card.
The one Nadine had circled twice.
The one I’d been tripping over in different contexts for days.
I sat up in bed. Not like a jolt, not even fast.
Just slow, cold, full-bodied awareness. The kind that starts at your fingertips and climbs its way up.
My phone was still in my hand. The image was fully loaded.
The screen
