Morning arrived clear and pale, the kind of light that did not demand anything of her or try to pull her forward faster than she was ready to move.
Willow woke before her alarm and lay still for a moment, eyes open, orienting herself not to anxiety but to sequence. Shower. Coffee. Review. Decide. The order mattered more than the outcome, and she let that settle before moving. There was no urgency pressing at her chest and no spike of anticipation she needed to outrun. The calm she felt was not relief, and it was not confidence in how things would unfold. It was readiness, the quieter assurance that she was no longer improvising her way through decisions.
