Chapter 68

• I hadn’t told her I’d moved again.
• She must have gotten the address from Lena or maybe even Mara. I didn’t ask. When I heard the knock that morning, soft and short with no impatience behind it, I almost ignored it. I had been sitting at the dining table with my laptop open and nothing typed. The screen glowed with a blank document, but my mind had refused to form words all morning.
• I was still in my robe. I hadn’t eaten. I hadn’t brushed my hair. I had told Julian I needed the day to myself, and he had nodded without asking why. The studio was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that crept in through the windows and clung to the walls. It didn’t feel like stillness. It felt like waiting.