I couldn't heal, because I kept pretending I wasn't hurt.
Terina didn’t move after switching off the engine. The hum of the car died, leaving only the ticking of the cooling engine and the dull sound of early morning chaos outside the packhouse.
She sat there with her hands still wrapped around the wheel, eyes trained forward, though her thoughts were elsewhere, on the quiet woman beside her who hadn’t spoken a word since they left the apartment.
Thea had been adamant about leaving, calling it a “retreat” with an ironic twist of the lips, but Terina knew better. Thea was hiding. She’d been hiding behind silence, behind sleep, behind excuses.
And Terina wasn’t having it anymore.
The air in the car felt heavy, like the calm before a storm. Thea sat curled slightly into the passenger sea
