OLIVIA POV
Albert didn’t let me go.
Not right away.
Let me cry my eyes out without judging me.
His hand pressed against the small of my back, firm and steady, as though even the air between us might steal me away again. That single touch burned, sent shivers through me, yet my mind betrayed me with the familiar venom of awarness.
What was he feeling under his palm? Bone. Angles. The wreckage of what had once been me.
My waist wasn’t soft anymore, my skin stretched tight over ribs that jutted like broken branches. I felt brittle, fragile, a spider-thin creature with limbs too long, too sharp, and not nearly enough flesh to disguise the ruin.
I hated it.
I hated that he was not embracing the woman he remembered, but this scrawny, starved shadow.
And still—he held on.
He lowered hi
