My eyes fall shut when soft words begin spilling from her mouth. I’m quickly lost in the story, in the hypnotic voice that strings it together. The rocking ship lulls me into that fleeting sense of peace while her fingers comb through my hair, tickle my skin. I picture this version of us, far in a future that will never come to pass. A happy ending in which I lie on Paedyn’s lap, listening to her read until the day I fade into a distant memory. But that is nothing more than a silly story of my making. So I revel in the present, in the moments where we hide from the inevitable. She reads until
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