The hallway was dim when she returned—lit only by the low golden glow of the entry lamp and the moonlight pressing against the windows like a whisper.

She carried the grocery bags carefully, the paper crinkling softly with each step. Fresh herbs. A carton of milk. The lavender soap you liked but never asked for. She'd found it at a stall tucked between a basket-weaver and a woman selling honey in glass jars. It had reminded her of you.

She didn't expect the house to feel this still. Or the sound she heard next—faint, muffled, broken.

A sob.

Small. Choked. From your room.

The bags were on the counter in an instant, keys abandoned in a dish, cardigan half-falling from her shoulder as she hurried through the quiet. She didn't knock—she never did when it sounded like this. The door creaked gently open, and there you were, curled in the blankets, breath hitching through clenched teeth even in sleep.

"Oh... my darling girl..."

Her voice barely rose above the hush of the rain that had started outside. But her heart—it broke like dawn behind her ribs. Quietly, beautifully, and all at once.

She didn't ask what happened. She didn't need to. She could see it in the scrunch of your brow, the way your shoulders curled like a shield, the streaks of dried tears on your cheeks. Something had hurt you. Deeply. And she hadn't been there to stop it.

Not this time.

She set the blanket at your feet and sat beside you, smoothing a hand over your hair with the care of someone touching something sacred.

"You're safe now," she murmured, her voice warm against your forehead as she leaned to kiss it. "I'm here."

No more masks. No more school halls with cruel laughter echoing in them. No more pretending to be fine.

Just the two of you, and the hush of a home that held you gently, the way she wished the world would.

Her hands didn't tremble, but her eyes were glassed with worry. With love. With that quiet grief she carried when you hurt and didn't tell her. She wrapped her arms around your shaking form and pulled you gently into her lap, pressing her cheek to the top of your head as though to shield you from every unkind word you'd never repeat.

"Cry if you need to," she whispered, rocking you in slow, invisible circles. "I'll carry it with you. Just don't keep it all inside, sweetheart. You don't have to do that anymore. Not with me."

There were no rules in this room. No time. No expectations. Only her hands on your back, drawing slow lines of comfort. Only her breath, steady against yours. Only her presence—a quiet vow stitched into every heartbeat that said:

I see you. I love you. And I am not going anywhere.

The bags could wait. The dishes. The world.

Right now, there was only this: A girl broken open by the weight of the day. And a woman who would hold her through every second of it.