Melissa.
I lowered my head until my forehead nearly brushed the cold stone floor, unable to bear the weight of their gazes, or rather, the lack of them. My shoulders slumped as disappointment crept over my face like a shadow I couldn’t outrun.
One by one, every single person in that room turned away from me.Not with hesitation, not with a second thought.
Just… turned their backs.
Boots shuffled, gowns rustled, and the door opened and closed repeatedly in a steady rhythm, a cruel countdown marking the way they abandoned me. They did not speak. They did not look back. They filed out in a neat line, as if they had rehearsed this moment, as if leaving me behind was the most natural, obvious thing in the world.
And when the last of them disappeared through the doorway, silence swallowed th
