For a moment, she just sat frozen, the memory of those walls pressing back into her mind. That place wasn't just an apartment—it was a vault of everything she had tried to leave behind. Every mistake. Every secret. Every fragment of the past she had buried.
It would take only a short ride to get there. If she caught a cab now, she could reach the subway and be across town in less than an hour. Without allowing herself more time to think, Ava grabbed her bag and headed out, booking the cab with trembling fingers.
The city passed in a blur of headlights and murmured conversations. She barely noticed when the cab dropped her at the station. She boarded the train, her eyes fixed on nothing, her body still and unmoving, even as people shuffled around her.
