A small breath leaves me before I can stop it.
Matteo is…a strange comfort.
Not because he tries to be. He doesn’t.
He just exists in this world like color exists in a place that forgot what brightness feels like.
I see him almost every day now.
He’s one of the only things that feels normal.
Yesterday, he brought in a nail technician without warning.
“It’s not part of my job description,” he said when I questioned him, already arranging polish like it was a military operation. “But it is necessary. Come on now. Don’t argue.”
I remember staring at him like he was insane.
He didn’t care.
Now my nails are a soft blush pink.
And I hate how much it helps.
How something so small can make me feel…slightly less like I’m drowning.
I sit by the window, staring out at the grounds.
Everything is still.
Too still.
And I wonder how long it will stay that way.
Because nothing about this life has ever stayed calm for long.
Especially not after a video like yesterday’s.
Anton’s face flashes through my mind again—calm, controlled, certain. Like the world around me is just waiting to be burned down.
My fingers curl slightly against my lap.
No.
I refuse to think like that today.
Today, I choose something else.
Even if it’s small.
Even if it doesn’t change anything.
I stand from the chair.
Timofey told me days ago that there’s a library on the first floor of the estate. I’ve avoided it since then.
Not because I don’t want to go.
But because the last time I was in a library, everything fell apart.
