And somewhere beneath the sedation, beneath the heat, beneath the fragments of the woman I used to be—I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Perhaps that was the final definition I'd been searching for.
Love: the willing surrender of sanity. The choice to fall and trust that the madness will catch you.
Rook had caught me.
And I never wanted to be sane again.
Epilogue
Beloved
Listening Companion:
Nina Simone—I put a Spell on You and more. . .
I woke to music playing.
Not the discordant strings of Penderecki or the haunting elegance of Debussy. This was something else entirely—a voice like smoke and velvet, curling through the air, wrapping around my consciousness and pulling me gently toward the surface.
Nina Simone. I Put a Spell on You.
And her voice was a spell in itself, dark and honeyed, singing about possession and obsession in that raw, unapologetic way that always made my skin prickle with recognition.
I understand this song on a whole new level now.
My eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
White.
Everything was white, but not the sterile, padded white of the isolation cell.
This white was luminous.
Ethereal.
The white of clouds and wedding gowns.
The bedroom was massive—easily three times the size of my entire apartment back in the life I used to live.
The bed beneath me was a sprawling king, draped in Egyptian cotton sheets so soft they felt like water against my skin. The headboard was carved mahogany, intricate patterns of vines and flowers winding through the dark wood.
But it was the balcony that stole my breath.
Huge French doors stood wide open, leading to a terrace that seemed to float above the world.
Sheer white curtains rippled in the breeze, billowing into the room and retreating.
Billowing and retreating.
In a hypnotic rhythm that matched the distant crash of waves.
Ocean waves.
The sound was everywhere—a constant, rolling thunder that vibrated through the floor, through the bed, through my bones. Salt hung in the air, clean and sharp, mixing with the floral sweetness of flowers blooming nearby.
I sat up slowly, taking inventory of my body.
