You were finally getting a moment to breathe.

Curled up on your bed, the familiar walls of your room wrapped around you like a blanket—silent, still, safe. The kind of quiet that felt almost foreign after the chaos of the past weeks. You figured you’d earned this. After everything that had happened lately, you needed a pause. Just a moment where you could pretend the world outside wasn’t so relentless, where the storms of Malix and the devils clawing their way into your life weren’t at your doorstep, and where Diana’s maddening games didn’t gnaw at the edges of your sanity. It had been nonstop chaos—a whirlwind of danger, impossible choices, and emotions you hadn’t even begun to unpack.

And then, of course, there were the boys. Still living under your roof, still adjusting, still trying to fit pieces of themselves into this fractured, unpredictable life you were all trying to navigate. Their presence was comforting in a way you hadn’t realized you craved—but comforting came with its own weight. A subtle, pressing reminder of how drastically your life had changed in such a short span, how fragile normalcy had become.

You let your eyes drift closed for a second, letting the soft mattress cradle you, letting the hum of the quiet room drown out everything else. For a heartbeat, you allowed yourself to pretend none of it existed.

“Hey, you okay?”

The voice cut through the quiet like a gentle knife—soft, yet startling in the stillness. You jolted, your heart thudding as your eyes snapped open.

In the doorway stood a familiar figure, a shock of ginger hair catching the lazy, golden afternoon light. His brow was furrowed with worry, one hand resting lightly on the edge of the doorframe, the other hanging awkwardly by his side. He looked like he didn’t want to be there, but had come anyway—drawn by some quiet sense that you needed him, even if you didn’t.

“Sorry,” he said quickly, lifting his hands in a small, almost apologetic gesture. “I knocked a couple of times, but you didn’t answer, and I thought… maybe something was wrong.”

There was a genuine concern in his voice, soft yet insistent. It settled somewhere in your chest, warm and unwelcome all at once, pulling at something you weren’t ready to face.