So she stood, slowly, like the floor might give out beneath her, and walked back to her room. Each step was careful. Measured. She would lie down. Maybe it would pass. Maybe it was nothing. But in the back of her mind, something shifted—something quiet and ominous that refused to be named.
Tula became a master of concealment. She learned to flinch in silence, to smile through winces, to time her sighs between footsteps. At dinner, she pushed food around her plate, offering excuses with a grandmother’s charm—“You don’t need that much at my age”—as though appetite naturally faded with time.