Willow woke with a heaviness that did not belong to sleep alone. It clung to her body the way humidity clings to glass, thick and slow and impossible to shake off fully. For a moment she remained still, allowing her eyes to adjust to the pale streaks of morning light sliding through the curtains. Her head throbbed with the dull soreness that came from too much thinking and not enough rest. Her shoulders felt stiff from lying curled too long in one position, and the base of her spine carried the familiar ache that had become part of every morning now that she was thirty two weeks along.
Yet none of that was the reason she stayed still.
