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I close my eyes. Just for a second. Just long enough to let that truth settle into my bones like a promise.

Then I inhale.

Not the gasping, jagged breath that comes when your body forgets how to breathe. No. This one is different. Intentional. Deep. From the gut. I breathe in until it almost hurts, and then I hold it.

One, two, three, four.

Then exhale. Slowly. Deliberately.

I am safe. I am whole. I am not broken just because she can’t see me as healed.

I do it again. Another breath.

This time I picture Reese’s face—the one from her YouTube videos, soft and determined and always framed by that bright, clean light. She’s talked about this—how trauma lives in your body. How sometimes your body throws a tantrum because it thinks you’re in danger when really… you’re just remembering what it feels like not to be loved right.

“Name five things you can see,” I whisper, grounding myself the way Reese taught. “Four things you can touch. Three things you can hear. Two you can smell. One you can taste.”

I rattle them off, my voice raw and scratchy and stupidly wet. The echo of my mother’s words still ricochets in my chest like a pinball. Pregnant with one man’s babies, living with another.

But the worst part wasn’t the words. It was the look on her face when she said them. Like she’d been waiting. Holding it in. Like she couldn’t wait to make me feel small again.

You must’ve done something to make him stray.

I shake the thought off, fingers tightening around the hem of my oversized knit sweater. It still smells like him—crisp and spicy and warm. He always smells like home.

My phone vibrates beside me on the tile. The screen lights up. Kingston

I swipe to answer, wiping under my eyes with the back of my hand. “Hey.”

“Hi, beautiful,” his voice comes through low, gentle. Tired but alert. “You good?”

I force a smile into my voice. “Yeah. Just got home not too long ago. Harry helped me bring everything up.”

“I told him to keep an eye out. He said you looked like you were about to drop.”

I laugh under my breath. “I was. But it was worth it. You should see all the stuff I got.”

“Oh yeah?” I can hear the smile tug at his mouth. “Tell me everything.”

I push myself off the floor and start walking toward the couch. “Okay, so first of all, I found these little onesies that say Twice the Trouble and Double the Love. They’re so soft I nearly cried in the middle of the store.”

Kingston chuckles. “Of course you did.”

“I got a few more gender-neutral things, too. More beige and olive greens. I know we talked about doing that nursery mood board this weekend⁠—”

“Babe, that sounds perfect. I can’t wait to see all of it when I get home.”

I bite down on my bottom lip. That word—home. The way he says it. Like it’s not just a place. Like it’s me.

“You sound tired,” I murmur.

“Just pre-game jitters. We’re heading out soon.”

“Are you okay?”

“I am now.” A beat. “You sure you don’t want to come? There’s still time.”

I glance at the stack of bags in the corner, the untouched tea mug still sitting on the kitchen counter. The silence in this apartment somehow feels less empty now that he’s on the line.