It had been a rough couple of weeks—one thing after another, dragging you down until you stopped keeping up with yourself. You had been doing so well before, past all of this, or so you thought. But suddenly, you found yourself back in that place again. The exhaustion, the lack of motivation, the way you let things slip through your fingers. Work? You stopped going. Eating? Only when you remembered. Sleep? A struggle.

And Laufey noticed.

She always noticed.

She never said anything outright—never made you feel worse than you already did. But she was there. In the way she started cooking more, setting a plate in front of you without asking if you were hungry because she knew you wouldn’t say yes. In the way she pulled you into bed at night, humming softly against your hair, fingers tracing slow, absentminded patterns against your back. In the way she took care of the things you neglected, all while juggling her own responsibilities.

You felt guilty. You hated relying on her like this.

But Laufey never made it feel like a burden.

“Come eat,” she called gently from the kitchen. When you didn’t respond right away, she peeked into the room, tilting her head. “You don’t have to finish it, just sit with me for a bit.”

You sighed, dragging yourself up, and when you sat across from her at the table, she smiled—soft and warm, like she was just happy you were there.

“You’ll get back on track,” she murmured, reaching across to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. “We’ll do it together.”