For a moment I don’t understand why. The air in Gran’s house is usually cool in the mornings, the kind of cool that creeps under doors and settles along floorboards. But I’m cocooned in something heavier, layered and close.
Smoke. Salt. Tea. Oud. Rain. Sweetness.
Memory returns in fragments.
The box.
The folding.
The sofa corner.
The…nest.
My eyes open, and I find myself half-curled into the cushions, Sol’s shirt twisted under my shoulder, Koa’s flannel bunched at my hip, Kai’s hoodie pressed against my back like a barrier, Finn’s t-shirt still tucked against my chest.
I don’t move immediately.
The ache is still there. But it’s dulled. It no longer feels like something clawing from the inside out. It’s lower now. Manageable. A steady throb instead of a sharp fracture.
I press my face deeper into the fabric before I can stop myself, inhaling slowly.
My body answers. Instant relief. It’s humiliating. And devastating.
I sit up slowly, disentangling myself from the layered fabric, and the cool air hits my skin instantly. The absence is noticeable. My senses sharpen, searching.
I swallow.
I don’t want to need this.
I force myself to stand, even though the nest behind me feels like gravity. My body protests the distance as I step away from it, a faint prickling under my skin like static building again.
“Get a grip,” I mutter to myself.
The bathroom is colder than the living room. I twist the shower on too hot and stand under it longer than necessary, letting the water beat against the back of my neck.
It helps. A little. But when I reach for the shelf automatically, the absence hits harder than the cool air did.
There’s no ocean-toned shampoo and conditioner. No ridiculous overly expensive body wash that smells faintly of caramel and salt.
Just my grandmother’s plain lavender soap.
I use it. But it feels wrong. Too light. Too clean. It washes away the layered scents clinging to my skin, and as the water runs down the drain I feel something else go with it – that faint buffer of comfort I’d built around myself.
By the time I dry off, my chest feels hollow again.
I return to the living room without consciously deciding to.
The nest is still there, slightly rumpled from sleep.
It looks deliberate now.
Obvious.
My cheeks burn faintly.
I should dismantle it.
But I don’t. I can’t bring myself to.