جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 68

The laughter was still in my chest when my mom's voice shifted. Not dramatically or all at once. It was just a small change in tone, the kind I'd learned to notice over the years. Like she was about to say something she'd been working up to for a while. "Nora." "Mm?" "I need to tell you something." I stopped smiling. "Okay." She paused. Then, carefully, "Leon is coming back." The name landed in my chest like something cold. Wait, who??? For a second I didn't say anything, just lay there on my bed staring at the ceiling, feeling the warmth of the last few minutes drain out of the room completely. "Leon....?" I repeated. "Yes." Her voice had gone gentle in that specific way she used when she already knew she was walking into something difficult. "He called last week. He's been abroad for a while but he's coming home, and I thought... I thought it would be nice if we all—" I frowned and cut in. "No." "Nora—" "Mom." "Just.... listen to me for a second." I sat up slowly,

The laughter was still in my chest when my mom's voice shifted. Not dramatically or all at once. It was just a small change in tone, the kind I'd learned to notice over the years. Like she was about to say something she'd been working up to for a while. "Nora." "Mm?" "I need to tell you something." I stopped smiling. "Okay." She paused. Then, carefully, "Leon is coming back." The name landed in my chest like something cold. Wait, who??? For a second I didn't say anything, just lay there on my bed staring at the ceiling, feeling the warmth of the last few minutes drain out of the room completely. "Leon....?" I repeated. "Yes." Her voice had gone gentle in that specific way she used when she already knew she was walking into something difficult. "He called last week. He's been abroad for a while but he's coming home, and I thought... I thought it would be nice if we all—" I frowned and cut in. "No." "Nora—" "Mom." "Just.... listen to me for a second." I sat up slowly,

55The room went quiet the second I stepped up to the screen.Ten faces stared back at me. Suits, folders, coffee cups nobody was drinking. Cael sat near the back, arms crossed, watching without a single readable expression on his face.I took a breath and clicked to the first slide."Thank you all for being here," I said, voice steadier than I expected. "I want to walk you through the Meridian project, and I'm going to keep it simple, because the best ideas usually are."A couple of them smiled slightly at that."Think of Meridian's brand like a house," I said, clicking to a simple diagram. "Right now, the house has good bones. Strong walls, solid roof. But nobody driving past it stops to look, because the paint is boring and the front door doesn't stand out."One of the investors chuckled. "Fair description.""Our job wasn't to tear the house down and build a new one," I continued. "It was to repaint it, fix the lighting, and make sure people driving by actually want to walk in."I

Avery barely slept.Every time she came close, something pulled her back. The library never fully went quiet, and even when it did, her own thoughts were loud enough to fill the silence.Security came twice during the night.The first time, a tap on her desk startled her awake so hard she knocked her pen to the floor."Miss, you can't sleep here."She sat up quickly, blinked at her open notebook, and said she was studying.The guard looked at the notebook, looked at the clock — just past midnight — and walked away without another word.The second time, around three in the morning, she almost cried from sheer exhaustion. She managed to stay upright long enough for him to move on, then folded her arms back on the desk and pressed her face into them.By the time pale light started creeping through the tall library windows, her neck ached, her eyes felt like sandpaper, and her stomach was hurting from not eating the previous day.She sat up slowly and looked around.Students were already