Chapter Thirty-Four
I didn’t realize how fragile it was—
not at first.
Everything felt… steady.
Not perfect, not completely calm, but balanced in a way I hadn’t felt since this all began. The constant pressure was gone, replaced by something quieter. Something that stayed in the background unless I focused on it.
And for a while—
I didn’t.
I let myself move through the day like nothing had changed.
Like I hadn’t just redrawn the lines of something I barely understood.
That was my first mistake.
Because control doesn’t slip all at once.
It fades.
Slowly.
Quietly.
In the smallest, most unnoticeable ways.
It started with distraction.
I was sitting on my bed, my thoughts drifting—not intentionally, just… naturally. Letting my mind wander the way it used to before everything bec
