დ Elara დ
The drive back home was a blur. The streetlights dragged like slow comets across the windshield, and the city spat me out onto the highway, and then I was surrounded by the kind of darkness only the valley could offer. By the time the gravel popped under my tires, my hands had gone cold around the wheel. I parked crooked beside the porch and hurried inside. The house breathed its same old breath: lemon cleaner and dust, and the faint sweetness of grapes that had found their way into everything. I moved down the hall on autopilot, past the room at the end without looking in, and pushed into mine. The bed was where I left it. The cardigan I had tossed that morning lay like a quiet question over the chair. Everything was how I had left it, and yet, it all felt like a slap in the fa
