Chapter 70

• Zara
• The estate walls never felt so suffocating until I came back. Same streets, same trimmed hedges, same neighbors peeking through curtains as if gossip is their only fuel. And of course—Alex.
• She lived just across, her house visible from my bedroom window, her presence lingering even when she wasn’t there. The thought of bumping into her at the gate, in the supermarket, or worse, on our shared street during one of those forced neighborhood barbecues, made my chest tighten.