Elena's POV
The symptoms didn't leave. They settled in.
Sunday passed as though it had made a quiet agreement with my body to keep time suspended. I slept through most of it, not the sharp, desperate sleep of exhaustion, but a heavy, syrupy kind that pulled me under even when I surfaced for air. Each time I woke, it felt like I had only just closed my eyes. Morning blurred into afternoon. Afternoon softened into evening. Light shifted across the walls in slow, forgiving increments, and I followed it only with my breath.
Justin checked on me constantly, though he tried not to let the checking feel like surveillance. He'd open the bedroom door quietly, pause as if listening for proof that I was still anchored to the world, then step in with a glass of water or a bowl of soup or just his presence. Sometimes he sat on the edge of the bed and read emails in silence. Sometimes he brushed my hair back from my face and kissed my forehead like a ritual.
