The apartment felt less like a home and more like a waiting room for a life I no longer wanted.Outside, the city carried on with its relentless, mechanical rhythm, but inside, the silence was a heavy, suffocating shroud. I moved through the rooms like a shadow, my footsteps echoing against the floorboards. Every corner of the space was a stinging reminder of what had been ripped away.I pulled a small, battered suitcase from the back of the closet. It felt strange to be packing again, as if the last few months of fire and secrets had been nothing but a fever dream.I didn't need much. I folded a few sweaters, my movements slow and deliberate, but my hands stopped when I reached for the coffee table.There it was. My mother’s silver locket, its surface still dull and blackened by the explosion, and the charred, twisted metal of the ring Daniel had given me. I picked them up, the cold metal biting into my palm. I felt a relatable, hollow ache in my chest, the kind that comes when you r
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