Liora’s POV
By Thursday evening, I could finally breathe.
The past few days at the office had been a blur of meetings, reports, and endless calls. Even the air in the office felt sterile, like it had been filtered through a machine that ran on caffeine and deadlines. When I submitted the final draft ahead of schedule, Mirabel blinked at me like I’d performed a miracle.
“You’re leaving early?” she’d asked, half incredulous.
“For once,” I’d said, shutting down my computer before I could change my mind. But I didn’t go home. Instead, my feet carried me somewhere I hadn’t been in while, the university hospital.
The halls still smelled the same. Clean, faintly antiseptic, with that underlying hum of machines and distant chatter. It hit me harder than I expected, the echo of my
