I pick at a loose thread on the duvet until it gives, then tuck the end under my nail like I didn’t break anything. I hear my mother in my head, soft and impossible to argue with.
The first choice you make is whether to make the choice at all.
I hate how right she still is.
“I’m not unhappy,” I finally say. “I’m just…not?—”
“Here,” Alessia finishes.
“Yes.”
Silence settles again, kinder than before. Valentina stands and comes to me, brushing a palm over my hair once, a touch light enough I can pretend it didn’t happen.
“You don’t have to be brave right now,” she says. “You can just be tired.”
“I am.”
“Then be tired. We’ll check on you later.”
Alessia rises too. She doesn’t come closer. She points at the table instead.
“I took your phone and turned it face-down,” she says. “So if you make a choice to look, it’s yours. Not because it flashed.”
It’s such a small, stupid kindness that my throat tightens around it.
I nod. “Thank you.”
They head for the door, and Valentina pauses with her hand on the knob. “Do you want it closed?”
“Yes.”
She closes it. The latch catches. The room goes still.
I lie back without getting under the covers and stare at the ceiling. The lines cross each other in neat right angles like the pattern was designed to keep a mind from wandering.
It doesn’t work. The hum of the city threads through the walls. The radiator sighs. A voice in my head says cathedral veil, and another says run.
I don’t cry. Not because it wouldn’t help, but because my body has figured out the math. Crying takes water. Water takes strength. Strength is a currency I’m saving.
After a while, I drift. Not asleep, not awake, but somewhere in the middle where thoughts repeat until they lose their edges.
Footsteps pass in the hall. Voices murmur and fade. Duchess pads to the bed, climbs onto my stomach, kneads twice, and settles. Her weight is ridiculous for something so small. It pins me to the present.
There’s a knock. Soft. The kind someone uses when they don’t want to be heard knocking at all.
“Come in.”
Alessia cracks the door and slides a mug onto the dresser, keeping the line of the doorway with her body like she’s a bouncer at my own threshold.
“Chamomile,” she says. “You don’t have to drink it.”
“I know. The tea can stay. Thank you.”
She smiles without teeth. “We’ll be in the living room. If you want noise, come sit and pretend you’re listening.”
“Thank you.”
She nods once and disappears, door whispering shut behind her. I sit up enough to reach the mug. It’s too hot, and I sipanyway. The first burn reminds me I’m still living in a body that notices things. Heat. Weight. The kind press of a cat. The way the air tastes like winter through a cracked window.
