-Julien Grayson:
The house felt… different.
Not unfamiliar—never that. This was still my home. The same walls, the same soft lighting, the same quiet warmth that always seemed to live in every corner. But there was something shifted now. Something heavier beneath it all, like everything had been rearranged without actually moving.
Maybe it was me.
Maybe it was him.
I stood there for a moment, just inside my room, looking around like I hadn't been here my entire life. My bed was still the same—pink sheets, soft and slightly wrinkled, a few plushies tossed carelessly at the corner like I had left them in a rush. My closet door was half open, clothes slightly disturbed, like someone had been going through them.
Looking for me.
That thought sat quietly in my chest.
Behind me, I could feel Ezra.
He hadn't moved far. He never really did. There was always that quiet awareness of him—his presence filling the space in a way that made everything else feel smaller.
Safer.
