Getting up wasn’t happening.
My body ached in places that didn’t even make sense. The mattress, though softer than the slabs they called beds in the other rooms, didn’t heal what the rest of the system had broken. So I lay there. Still. Silent. Trying to collect myself.
I kept hoping this wasn’t another one of those dreams—the kind that started peaceful and spiraled into something bizarre and painful. I didn’t want to see her again.
Lila.
Too naive for her own good. Too kind to be in the world I lived in. She walked through my dreams like some fragile ghost with responsibilities she couldn’t carry and regrets she wouldn’t confess.
But the part that kept gnawing at me—the part that made me wonder if I was actually losing it—was the feeling that Lila and Aria were the same damn person.
