Elena stood motionless in the middle of the upstairs storage room, surrounded by half-opened cardboard boxes of vinyl records and guitar strings.
The albums she had just thrown in frustration lay scattered across the floor like broken promises. Her breathing was still uneven from the surge of anger that had made her lash out at the call from Hye-rin.
*Moving on.*
The phrase kept echoing in her skull like a bad chorus she couldn't mute.
She clenched her jaw so hard her teeth ached. No. She wasn't going to "move on." Not from her mother's death. Not from the guilt that sat like wet cement in her chest every time she remembered how little time she had actually spent with Saeun after waking up. Not from the dream she had chased so obsessively that she had let everything else slip through her fingers.
