Chapter One Hundred And Sixty Two
The next morning, the apartment felt entirely too quiet. The storm that Khalid had left in his wake seemed to linger in the very air of the living room, a heavy, electric charge that I couldn’t shake off no matter how hard I tried to focus on my normal routine. Chase was sitting at the small kitchen table, happily eating his cereal and still chattering away about the elephants, the giraffes, and how Mr. Beast had held him up so high. Every single mention of his name felt like a gentle tug on a wire that was directly connected to my heart, pulling at the neat, structured life I had spent five years building. I tried to smile and nod, answering my son’s endless questions with as much warmth as I could muster, but my mind was entirely stuck on the final word
