I haven’t slept properly in three days.Not real sleep anyway.Just fragments.Ten minutes here.Twenty there.Then I wake up choking on panic with my heart trying to claw its way out of my chest.Every single time, I hear Daniel’s voice again.Your father is flying in for this event.And suddenly I’m seventeen again.Locked in a marble mansion that never felt like home.Flinching every time footsteps came near my bedroom door.Waiting for anger to explode.Waiting for disappointment.Waiting for pain.Wednesday morning arrives like a punishment.Blackwood University is loud around me—students laughing, doors slamming, coffee machines hissing—but it all sounds distant, muffled underwater noise inside my skull.I can barely feel my hands.I stand in front of my dorm mirror for almost five full minutes trying to button my shirt because my fingers won’t stop trembling.Pathetic.I look pathetic.Dark circles stain the skin beneath my eyes. My blonde hair is messy from running my hands th
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