Vera

The hours bled into each other, time unraveling like a thread from a frayed seam. There were no clocks in the room, no sunlight to mark the rhythm of day and night, only the flicker of that damned lightbulb and the heaviness in my chest.

Vanessa stirred beside me on the thin mattress, her small body curled like a kitten against mine. Her hair smelled faintly of lavender shampoo, my lavender shampoo the last trace of normalcy I had left. I pressed my lips to her crown, breathing her in like ...