POV: VIVIAN
The morning arrives like a punishment.
Grey light seeps through the curtains and I lie still for a long time, staring at the ceiling, waiting for my body to feel like mine again. It doesn't. There's a hollowness in my chest that isn't grief exactly, more like the aftermath of grief, the stunned quiet that follows something that has finally, irrevocably, confirmed your worst suspicions about the universe.
I turn my head. Chase is awake beside me, has been for a while judging by the stillness of him, the kind of motionless that belongs to someone who has been lying in the dark thinking thoughts they won't share. He's pale. Not hangover pale, not tired pale. Pale the way marble is pale, drained of warmth, drained of color, like something essential has been taken out of him in the night and not returned.
