VIVIANCharlotte didn’t wait to be invited in.The moment the door opened fully, she stepped past me with the same quiet confidence she had always carried—as if every space she entered naturally belonged to her.I closed the door slowly behind her.The soft click echoed louder than it should have.Final.Unavoidable.For a second, neither of us spoke.Charlotte moved further into the living room, her eyes drifting lazily across the space. She took in everything—the furniture, the arrangement, the subtle details that most people would overlook.But she didn’t overlook anything.She never had.“You’ve been hiding well,” she said casually.Her voice carried that familiar smoothness, like silk drawn over something sharp.I walked past her without responding immediately, giving myself a second to breathe, to settle the tension that had already begun tightening in my chest.“I wasn’t hiding,” I said finally. “I was surviving.”Charlotte let out a soft laugh behind me.“Same thing,” she repl
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