The walls were closing in.
With every breath, the room felt more like a coffin, airless and heavy. Seraphina lay curled in the center of the bed, a fragile knot of misery that seemed to be shrinking by the second, fading into the stale, shadowed sanctuary of her room.
Outside, the world dared to continue. Morning bled into afternoon, and afternoon surrendered to night, but for Seraphina, time had dissolved into a singular, suffocating ache.
She hadn't crossed the door since that afternoon. Since the explosion of her nude tape. Since life as she knew it had shattered into jagged, irreparable pieces.
Her fingers were stiff, white-knuckled around the sleek glass of her phone. She stared at the screen, a digital tether to a world she no longer belonged to, waiting for a spark that never came.
Damon's call.
She tapped his name.
"Just call," she rasped, her voice a rusted blade against the silence. "Anything. Please. Justin say a word"
