Ella
Paige’s message sat on my screen like a lit match hovering over dry grass.
“Ella, do you want to know what really happened with the fire back then? I can tell you the truth…”
The car hummed softly beneath me as Hugh steered through afternoon traffic.
Paulina sat beside him, scrolling through her phone, her brow creased with concern she was trying, and failing, to hide.
Outside the window, the city slid past in streaks of glass and steel, sunlight glinting off office towers like a thousand unblinking eyes.
Everything looked ordinary. Too ordinary, considering my pulse had started to drum against my ribs.
The fire.
It had been years, but the word still tasted like ash in my mouth. Smoke. Sirens. The way my mother’s hand had slipped from mine in the chaos, fingers cold and wet
