I rushed to her side the moment I saw her sway.
"Mom, are you okay?"
Even him and the woman clinging to his arm went quiet. The room shifted. I could feel it the tension tightening like an invisible leash. His eyes showed concern. Hers flickered with unease, sharp and nervous.
Mom set the bowl down with careful hands. She pressed a palm to her chest, breathed slowly, then accepted the warm water Damian passed to her. She drank, steadying herself before she spoke.
"I'm fine," she said softly. "It's probably just the change of environment."
It had been almost a month since she moved here. Any normal person would have adjusted by now. But my mother wasn't just dealing with a new city. She was living on land that had never truly welcomed her.
When I first woke up in this body, I didn't understand her story. I thought she was older. I was wrong.
Her life had been carved by other people's choices from the very start.
