After Midnight With Him
There were just crayons breaking under too much pressure, and Milo's ongoing campaign to prove dragons were objectively superior to dinosaurs, and the particular, uncomplicated joy of being somewhere I didn't have to brace myself.
I hadn't realized how much I'd missed simply existing in a room without flinching.
It was almost ten when Eleanor rose to draw the curtains for the night, humming something under her breath, glancing out at the dark street the way she always did—an old habit, she'd told me once, from a childhood spent watching for headlights that meant her father was finally home. Her humming stopped.
She went very still.
"Eleanor?"
She didn't answer right away. She leaned closer t