Trust altered the way the past spoke.
Aaliyah noticed it in the memories that surfaced now, how they arrived without demand, without urgency to be reinterpreted. They no longer insisted on meaning.
They simply existed.
She was folding a blanket when one surfaced unexpectedly: a meeting years ago, fluorescent lights buzzing, her voice steady while her body shook beneath the table. She remembered the weight of responsibility then, the sense that if she faltered, everything would unravel.
The memory passed.
It did not ask her to revisit it.
That, she realized, was new.
Later, over breakfast, Rowan mentioned an old place they used to go together.
"Do you remember that café near the river?" Rowan asked. "The one with the chipped mugs?"
Aaliyah smiled. "Yes. I was always half-working there."
Rowan laughed softly. "You never stopped."
Aaliyah considered that. "I don't think I knew how."
"And now?"
