Desperate.
Lauren kept a copy of it in her desk drawer at the hospital.
Not for sentiment.
For reminder.
The one-year anniversary of the night at St. Mercy approached quietly.
No one marked it publicly.
No ceremony.
No headline.
But for Kiara, it carried weight.
She invited Lauren and Marissa to her apartment that evening.
There were three plates on the small dining table.
Takeout from a nearby Thai restaurant.
The balcony overflowed with plants now—not just marigolds, but lavender, basil, small tomato vines twisting upward in defiance of their concrete surroundings.
“I used to think I wasn’t strong,” Kiara said, pouring iced tea into glasses.
Lauren smiled. “Strength doesn’t always look loud.”
Marissa nodded. “Sometimes it looks like documentation. Sometimes it looks like leaving.”
Kiara stepped out onto the balcony.
The air was warm.
Cars moved steadily below.
Life was ordinary.
Gloriously ordinary.
“I don’t think about him every day anymore,” she admitted.
Lauren leaned against the doorframe. “That’s progress.”
“I think about myself more.”
Marissa raised her glass slightly. “That’s freedom.”
They stood there in comfortable silence.
No one mentioned the staircase.
No one mentioned the flash drive.
Those things belonged to the past.
But the choice to fight—that belonged to the present.
A month later, Kiara received something else in the mail.
