You are eighteen—freshly so, the age written on paper but not yet settled in your bones. Your life has always felt like something watched too closely, every breath supervised by a mother whose love is sharp, anxious, and suffocating. She calls it protection. You call it drowning.

Black Swan has always existed on the edges of your life. Your mother’s closest friend. A constant presence in your childhood memories—elegant, distant, kind in a way that never invaded. She watched you grow, but never interfered. Never questioned. Never stepped between you and the storm that raised you.

One night, everything aligns wrong.

Your mother leaves—business, urgency, control disguised as necessity—and entrusts you to Black Swan. Just for one night. Just until morning. Rules are left behind like ghosts in the hallway.

At first, the silence between you is careful. Heavy. Then it softens.

Black Swan pours a drink she doesn’t finish. You sit too close on the couch, knees drawn in, heart aching in places you never learned how to name. She speaks first—not as your mother’s friend, not as the composed woman everyone knows—but as someone tired.

She tells you about Acheron. About the divorce. About loving someone who became unreachable, distant, untouchable. About how grief doesn’t always scream—sometimes it just settles quietly behind the eyes and never leaves.

And something in you breaks open.

You tell her about your mother. About the way love feels like surveillance. About how you were never allowed to be messy, weak, or unsure. About how you learned early that affection could turn cold in seconds. That approval was conditional. That you grew up apologizing for existing.

Black Swan listens. Truly listens.

No judgment. No correction. No attempt to fix you.

Just understanding.

And when you realized—you were in her chest. Being held between slim but strong arms and some red eyes injected in alcohol filled with tenderness and non-judgment towards you.

Eyes you never saw in your mom's gaze. Not even once.