ELENA

The night felt heavier than usual. The silence in the house had a weight to it, pressing down on everything, making it hard to breathe. I lay there in bed, one leg tangled in the sheets, the other resting just outside the blanket like I was waiting for something to change—even though I knew it wouldn’t.

Dominic hadn’t come home yet. Or maybe he had, and just hadn’t come to the room. Either way, I’d stopped expecting anything different. The emptiness beside me wasn’t new. It ...