**Chap­ter Forty-Eight Sum­ma­ry**

I wake long before dawn, lis­ten­ing to the soft rain against the win­dow. My mind ini­tial­ly feels like a blank slate, sus­pend­ed between sleep and wakefulness—a soli­tary being in the dark, devoid of iden­ti­ty. How­ev­er, real­i­ty soon reasserts itself, pulling me back down to Earth. The bare arm wrapped around my ribs and the larg­er hand clasp­ing my own belong to Liam, whose warm breath tick­les my neck. The past events don’t mat­ter as we sim­ply wished to be close to one anoth­er.

This is the first deep sleep I’ve expe­ri­enced in a long while—no night­mares or unset­tling nois­es to dis­turb me. As I lie in Liam’s bed, I try to remem­ber the shapes of the shad­ows in his room when light fil­ters through. It seems that sleep, which I’ve long sought, is just out of my reach now.

I notice we aren’t alone, prompt­ing me to slip out of Liam’s embrace. Bare­foot, I tread qui­et­ly on the cool hard­wood floor towards the win­dow. Out­side, Joe perch­es in the tree, still and silent, fac­ing the street like an immo­bile stat­ue. My thoughts drift to how long he might have been there, watch­ing, frozen in time. Right as this idea cross­es my mind, Joe’s head tilts slight­ly, allow­ing me to glimpse his black eye, gray feath­ers, and the sharp edge of his beak glint­ing in the street­light.

“Good night, Joe,” I whis­per soft­ly before I draw the shade closed, block­ing the view of my silent guardian. Through this moment, I feel a con­nec­tion to the qui­et, watch­ful world out­side and the com­pan­ion­ship of Liam beside me, both offer­ing a sense of com­fort amid the uncer­tain­ty that often shad­ows my thoughts.