Page 150 of The Threads Between

I wiped at my face, embarrassed and grateful all at once. “I'm sorry.”

“For what? Being dramatic? That's literally your brand.”

Mum sighed, but she was smiling too. “Go wash your hands, all of you. Dinner's ready.”

Dad clapped his hands once, satisfied. “You heard the boss.”

“Lily?” Mum touched my arm gently. “Sweetheart?”

I forced a breath into lungs that wanted to forget how.

“Yeah,” I said, voice rough but steadying. “I'm okay.”

And for the first time since stepping onto the porch, it wasn't entirely a lie.

Dad slung an arm around my shoulders as he steered us toward the sink. “Good. Because if you collapse before dessert, your mother will never forgive you.”

“I made lemon cake,” Mum called from the dining room.

“Sounds amazing!” I yelled back.

I dried my hands on a dish towel and paused at the edge of the hallway.

For one suspended moment, I just stood there.

Light spilled from the dining room, warm and golden. I could hear my sister arguing about slice size, my father insisting he had been promised the end piece, my mother shushing both of them while laughing anyway.

For the first time since the world split open, I let myself lean into it. Into the noise. The closeness. The fragile, impossible miracle of being here.

Into the life that had continued without me and somehow still made room when I returned.

CHAPTER 41

LILY

Dinner blurred into warmth and noise and too many overlapping conversations to follow all at once.

Dad told a long, meandering story about a colleague who had accidentally set off a ward in the university archives. Mum corrected details from across the table without looking up from cutting the cake. Miya interrupted both of them at least six times, usually to argue about something completely unrelated.

I laughed when they laughed. Answered when spoken to. Nodded in the right places.

But beneath it all, I was standing in the center of a life that no longer quite fit my shape, grateful for it, terrified of breaking it, afraid to move too suddenly in case it vanished.

By the time plates were cleared, my cheeks hurt from smiling.

“Come on,” Miya said abruptly, already halfway out of her chair. “You haven't seen my new work.”

My fork paused halfway to the plate. “Your new work?”

She looked personally offended. “Lily. I've only been sending you photos for months.”

Right. The version of me who belonged here had seen them. Had replied. Had known this.

“Of course,” I said quickly, pushing back my chair. “Lead the way.”

Miya grabbed my wrist and hauled me up the stairs with impatient enthusiasm.

The study door stood open at the end of the hall.