She stood there on the empty sidewalk, her tailored suit jacket insufficient against the December chill, and simply existed for a moment without purpose or direction or the relentless forward momentum that had carried her through two impossible days.
Slowly, deliberately, she tilted her head back and stretched her arms outward and upward, the movement releasing something that had been coiled tight inside her chest. Her muscles trembled as they extended, not from weakness but from acknowledgment, from finally admitting what her body had endured. The hours of flying. The violence. The endless decisions. All of it surfacing now that she'd given it permission.
A quiet breath left her lips, visible as mist in the cold air. Then another, deeper this time, unsteady, almost fragile. The kind of breath that carried more than oxygen, that released pressure she hadn't realized she was holding.
