The knock arrived at two in the afternoon. It wasn't the heavy, impatient thud of a visitor or the frantic rap of an emergency; it was soft, rhythmic, and specific.
It was Petricia's knock, a signature she had developed in their first week together, a sound so uniquely hers that Mike could identify it even in his sleep.
He pulled the door open, and the world outside seemed to fade into a blur, leaving only her.
She stepped into his space with the heavy, electric energy of someone carrying a secret that had been burning in her chest since the moment she woke up. It wasn't the frantic energy of panic, but something far more profound: a presence so immense it seemed to fill the entire hallway.
Before the door had even clicked shut behind her, she was in his arms. She wasn't sobbing, not exactly, but she was close; it was that deep, shuddering exhale of a person who had been holding their breath for a lifetime and had finally found the only safe place on earth to let it out.
