At 6:52 a.m., I am already dressed, and my name is Rachel, a woman who finally decided that fear will not write the rest of her life. I choose jeans, a soft gray sweater, and the pair of shoes I can move quickly in if I need to leave without looking back.
I dab concealer over the bruise on my cheek because control matters more than hiding, and upstairs Evan Fletcher is still asleep like nothing happened. He lies there with one arm across the bed, breathing evenly as if the night erased the moment his hand struck my face.
I walk through the house with a calm that feels unfamiliar, because fear has burned itself into something colder and sharper than panic. The coffee maker hums, the refrigerator light spills across the kitchen, and I begin pulling out eggs, butter, juice, and biscuit dough like this is still a normal morning.
My hands do not shake anymore, and that surprises me more than anything else happening in this house. I thought courage would feel loud and dramatic, but instead it feels quiet, steady, and almost distant like winter air cutting through fog.
At exactly 7:01, someone knocks on the front door with firm certainty, and I already know who it is before I open it. My older brother Aaron Collins stands there in a dark jacket, his hair damp from the early morning mist in Franklin Ridge, Ohio, and his jaw tight with things he has not said yet.
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