Mia
The house feels different this morning.
Not warmer. Not safer. But lighter—like someone cracked a window in a room I didn’t realize was suffocating me. I hum softly as I make coffee, pretending, just for a heartbeat, that this house isn’t a cage.
Sunlight spills across the countertops, gilding cold marble in gold. For a moment, I imagine I live somewhere else. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere no one watches me.
I don’t hear Anna enter.
I feel her.
Cold. Heavy. Like the pause before thunder breaks.
“What are you so happy about?” she asks, her voice sweet with poison.
I don’t turn. “Just a good morning.”
She scoffs. “Nothing about your life is good.”
There it is. Her favorite ritual.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” I say, pouring coffee.
Silence follows—not retreat. Shock.
I catc
