~Kaya's pov~

I woke up before the sun did. I always do. There’s something oddly satisfying about the silence of 4:00 a.m.—when even the city’s chaos forgets to breathe. My room was still shrouded in shadows, but the faint hum of the refrigerator and the soft creak of the ceiling fan reminded me I wasn’t alone. Not in the literal sense, of course. I’m rarely ever alone in my mind.