Laura — First Person POV

I didn’t think coming home would feel like this.

Four and a half years abroad had taught me how to breathe again, how to sleep without waking up choking on memories, how to smile without forcing my face into shapes it didn’t believe in. Florence became a quiet witness to my healing—stone streets that never asked questions, canvases that absorbed my grief without judgment, strangers who knew my work but not my past.

And yet the moment the plane touched down, everything I thought I had buried started clawing its way back.

The air smelled different here. Heavier. Familiar in a way that made my...