Chapter 203

The house had finally settled into a rare calm after the whirlwind of Harper’s birthday weekend. It was a quiet Thursday afternoon—the kind that doesn’t demand anything from you, but somehow still makes you think too much. The kind that invites stillness, reflection, and sometimes, conversations you don’t realize have been waiting for you.

I found myself drawn upstairs without really deciding to go there, like something inside me was already moving before I caught up to it. Harper’s room felt like the natural destination, as if my thoughts had quietly agreed I needed to be there.

The hallway was bathed in soft golden sunlight filtering through the curtains, the light stretching across the floor in long, gentle shapes. It shifted slightly as I walked past, shadows moving in a slow rhythm that made everything feel almost suspended in time.

I paused outside her door, listening to the faint scratch of pencil against paper drifting into the hallway. It was soft, rhythmi