Chapter Thirty-Six
The morning after the celebration is quiet in the way only real joy allows.
No music.
No audience.
Just light slipping through the curtains like it knows us.
I wake first.
Snow has softened the city overnight, rounding edges, muting noise. The world looks gentler—like it’s learned something. Noah is still asleep beside me, one arm thrown across the space where I exist, as if even unconscious he knows where I belong.
I lie there longer than necessary, listening to his breathing, to my own. There is no urgency in my chest. No countdown ticking behind my ribs.
For most of my life, happiness felt temporary—something you held with two hands because you didn’t trust it to stay. This happiness rests easily. It doesn’t demand proof. It doesn’t brace for loss.
It just is
