The days that followed blurred into a strange new rhythm—one that Lena had never known, never imagined, and yet somehow felt written into her bones.
Motherhood did not arrive gently.
It arrived crying.
Twice.
Lucas and Noah ruled the world in two-hour intervals, their tiny lungs powerful enough to shatter sleep, silence, and sanity all at once. Nights dissolved into fragments—feedings, diaper changes, soft rocking under dim lights, whispered pleas for just ten more minutes of rest.
Lena learned quickly that exhaustion had layers.
There was the physical one—aching arms, sore shoulders, a body still healing from trauma it hadn’t fully processed. Then there was the emotional one—the constant vigilance, the fear that something might go wrong if she blinked too long, slept too deeply, tru
