Elsie’s POV

I’ll never forget the way the walls felt like they were swallowing me whole. The room was tiny, too white, and way too cold. Everything smelled like a weird mix of bleach and medicine. The hospital bed beneath me was stiff, the kind of hard that made you feel even more miserable. But it wasn’t the room that hurt the most. It was the thoughts swirling in my head, louder than the distant beeping of machines and muffled voices outside the door.

How could she? I mean, *Mia*? My cousin, my best friend since forever, the person I told everything to? The one who used to braid my...