LOGINThe night arrived without ceremony.No alerts. No updates. No sudden call that demanded attention. The city outside the windows moved at its usual pace, lights blinking on and off in a rhythm that no longer felt hostile or indifferent.Just present.Lillian stood at the kitchen counter long after dinner had gone untouched, tracing the rim of a glass with her thumb. The house was quiet in a way it had not been for months. Not tense. Not anticipatory.Empty, but not hollow.Nathaniel watched her from across the room, saying nothing. He had learned that some silences asked to be shared, not solved.“I don’t know what to do with tonight,” she said finally.
Lillian had always known there were empty rooms inside her mind. She had learned to live around them, the way one learned the shape of a house in the dark. You did not question the missing doors. You simply learned not to reach for them.
Bloom House Floral did not look different after the engagement, but the world approached it differently.Lillian noticed it first in the way people paused before entering. Phones stayed in pockets. Voices lowered. Even t
Nathaniel slept poorly.Even in the quiet of Celestine Heights, rest came in fragments. His breathing was shallow. His brow furrowed, as if the body refused to surrender what the mind guarded. When Lillian entered the room







