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Transcript
00:00My phone is a brick of pure terror in my hand.
00:04The screen glows, too bright in the cozy dim of my daughter's bedroom.
00:09I can hear my own blood roaring in my ears, a tidal wave of pure panic.
00:14The text I just sent hangs in the digital space between me and a complete stranger.
00:20A single, desperate sentence.
00:23I'm scared.
00:25It's the kind of stupid you can't take back.
00:28The kind of stupid that gets people killed.
00:31My thumb had slipped, fumbling with a number I was sure was my best friend Maya's new burner.
00:36A wrong digit.
00:37One lousy, misplaced number, and I've just poured my fear out to a ghost.
00:43Lily whimpers in her sleep, her small hand clutching the edge of my sweater.
00:48Her breath hitches.
00:50A tiny, shady sound that snaps my spine straight.
00:54She's six.
00:55She doesn't understand why we left our apartment in the middle of the night with only two backpacks.
01:02She doesn't understand the man her uncle has become.
01:04The cold glint in his eyes when he told me I owed him.
01:09She just knows mommy is scared.
01:11And so now, she is too.
01:14My phone vibrates.
01:15Once.
01:17A sledgehammer to my ribcage.
01:19I almost drop it.
01:21The screen illuminates my face.
01:23I'm sure of it.
01:24A pale, guilty moon in the dark.
01:27A new message.
01:28From the random number.
01:30I don't want to look, but I have to.
01:33Don't move.
01:35The air leaves my lungs in a rush.
01:38It's not a question.
01:39It's not a, who is this?
01:40It's a command.
01:42Two words, typed with an absolute, chilling certainty.
01:47My head whips around, scanning the cheap motel room.
01:50The floral bedspread is tacky under my legs.
01:53The air smells like stale cigarettes and lemon-scented cleaner.
01:57The curtains are a thin, beige barrier between us and the world.
02:01Between us and him.
02:03My brother, Marco.
02:04He's not just a deadbeat anymore.
02:07He's a liability who gambled with the wrong people, and now he's given them my name as collateral.
02:13Another vibration.
02:15My heart tries to claw its way out of my throat.
02:18Look at the parking lot.
02:19Silver sedan, passenger side.
02:22Oh God.
02:23They found us.
02:25Marco gave them this location.
02:27This is it.
02:28This is how it ends in a roadside motel that charges by the hour, with my daughter's head in my lap.
02:35I'm frozen.
02:36Paralyzed.
02:37The don't move wasn't a suggestion.
02:40It's my body's new reality.
02:43Slowly.
02:44So slowly, my muscles scream.
02:47I lean to the side, peering through the gap in the curtains.
02:51The parking lot is washed in the sickly orange glow of sodium lights.
02:56And there it is.
02:57A silver sedan.
02:59Sleek and expensive.
03:01Looking entirely out of place among the pickup trucks and beat-up sedans.
03:06The passenger side window is down.
03:09A man is looking directly at our window.
03:12He's too far away to see clearly, but I can feel the weight of his gaze.
03:16He's not slouched.
03:18He's not nervous.
03:20He is stillness personified.
03:22A statue carved from shadow and intention.
03:26My phone vibrates again.
03:28A sob catches in my chest.
03:30I can't breathe.
03:32Come out.
03:33Slowly.
03:34Bring the child.
03:35The child.
03:37He knows about Lily.
03:38Of course he does.
03:40Marco would have told them everything.
03:42My mind is a frantic, scrambling thing.
03:45I could call the police.
03:47But Marco said these people are the police.
03:50Or own them.
03:51I could run out the back.
03:53But to where?
03:54With what money?
03:56With a six-year-old in her pajamas?
03:58I have no moves left.
04:01This is checkmate.
04:02I look down at Lily.
04:04Her lashes are dark feathers against her cheeks.
04:07She trusts me to keep her safe.
04:10I have to make a choice.
04:11Do I stay here, a trapped animal, and let them break the door down?
04:16Or do I walk out and meet the wolf on my own two feet, with some shred of dignity left?
04:23Baby, I whisper, my voice rough with fear.
04:26I shake her shoulder gently.
04:28Lily, wake up.
04:30We have to go.
04:31Her eyes flutter open, blurry with sleep.
04:34Mommy?
04:35Are we going home?
04:37Not yet, sweetheart.
04:38I stand, my legs feeling like water, and lift her into my arms.
04:44She's heavy, a dead weight of trust and innocence.
04:47I grab my backpack, the one with her stuffed rabbit peanut shoved in the top.
04:52My hand hesitates over the pepper spray on the nightstand.
04:55What good would it do?
04:57I leave it.
04:58A gesture of surrender.
05:00The walk to the door is the longest of my life.
05:03Each step is a lifetime.
05:05I turn the knob, the click echoing like a gunshot in the quiet room.
05:10The night air is cool.
05:12A shock to my system.
05:14The orange light is harsher out here.
05:16I can see the sedan clearly now.
05:19It's a car that costs more than I make in a year.
05:22The man hasn't moved.
05:24His arm is resting on the edge of the window, his hand draped over the wheel.
05:28He's wearing a simple, dark watch.
05:31I walk.
05:32One foot in front of the other.
05:34My heart is a wild, frantic bird beating against my ribs.
05:38Lily buries her face in my neck, sensing the danger she can't understand.
05:43I reach the car.
05:45I stop, standing a few feet from the open passenger window.
05:49I force myself to look in.
05:51And I see him.
05:53Really see him.
05:54He's younger than I expected, maybe mid-thirties.
05:58His face is all sharp, clean lines, a strong jaw, a straight nose, dark brows.
06:05His hair is dark, trimmed short, but it's his eyes that undo me.
06:09They are a quiet, stormy gray, and they are taking in every detail of me.
06:14My trembling hands, the wild fear in my eyes, the way I'm holding Lily like a shield.
06:21He doesn't look angry.
06:22He doesn't look cruel.
06:24He looks assessing, calm, a calculated storm to my fragile fire.
06:30Get in, he says.
06:32His voice is low.
06:34It's not a request.
06:35It's not a threat.
06:36It's a fact.
06:38It's the voice of a man who is used to being obeyed.
06:42This is it, the point of no return.
06:44If I get in this car, I am handing my life and my daughter's life over to a complete stranger.
06:51A man who exudes a quiet, absolute power that makes the air around him feel thick.
06:58I think of the text.
07:00Don't move.
07:01He knew where I was.
07:03He knew I had Lily.
07:04He could have sent a team of men to kick down the door, but he came himself.
07:09He told me to walk out.
07:11There's a bizarre, twisted courtesy in that.
07:14A thread of control he handed to me.
07:17It's the thinnest of reeds to cling to, but it's all I have.
07:22My hand is shaking as I reach for the door handle.
07:25It's cool and smooth.
07:26I pull it open.
07:28The interior light comes on, pristine leather smelling new.
07:32I slide into the passenger seat, holding Lily on my lap.
07:35She's heavy now, staring at the man with wide, uncertain eyes.
07:40He doesn't look at her.
07:41His gaze is fixed on me.
07:43I can feel it, like a physical touch.
07:46He puts the car in drive, the movement effortless.
07:50My name is Cairo, he says, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror and then back to the road ahead.
07:55He pulls smoothly out of the parking lot, leaving the motel and my old life behind in the orange-tinged dust.
08:03We drive in silence for a minute, the only sound the purr of the engine and Lily's soft breathing.
08:08I'm in a car with a mafia boss.
08:11I texted a mafia boss that I was scared, and he came.
08:15He speaks again, his voice cutting through the thick, terrified silence.
08:21Now, he says, his tone lethally soft.
08:25Tell me who you are and why a man like Marco Rossi has you running for your life.
08:30And I know, with a certainty that sinks into my bones, that I shouldn't trust him, that this man is the most dangerous thing I have ever encountered.
08:42But as the words start to spill from my lips, a confession of my brother's debts, his betrayals, my own paralyzing fear,
08:51I realize the terrible, undeniable truth.
08:56I already do.
08:57The safe house isn't a house.
09:00It's a pristine, modern apartment overlooking the river, all sharp angles and cold, beautiful surfaces.
09:07It feels like a museum, or a very expensive prison.
09:12For three days, we don't leave.
09:15The world outside the floor-to-ceiling windows is a postcard I'm not allowed to enter.
09:21Cairo is a ghost in this space.
09:24He moves through it with a silent, predatory grace.
09:28He's there, and then he's not.
09:30He leaves food on the counter, takeout from places I've only ever seen on food blogs, fruit so perfect it looks waxed.
09:39He leaves a new coloring book and a pack of markers for Lily on the coffee table.
09:44He doesn't say a word when he does it.
09:46He just places them down and walks away.
09:49He hasn't touched me.
09:52He's barely looked at me for more than a few seconds at a time.
09:55And it's driving me insane.
09:57The fear has morphed.
10:01It's not the sharp, frantic panic of the motel anymore.
10:05It's a low, humming anxiety.
10:08A constant awareness of him.
10:10He is the locked door.
10:13He is the loaded gun in the sleek lock box I saw him place on a high shelf.
10:18He is the comb at the center of my storm.
10:21And I am desperate for a reason to hate him.
10:25To solidify him as the villain in this story.
10:28It would be so much easier.
10:31But then there's Lily.
10:33On the fourth morning, she's coloring at the kitchen island.
10:36A sprawling, chaotic masterpiece of a purple dog with green spots.
10:42Cairo is making coffee.
10:43His back to us.
10:45He moves with an efficient, contained economy that fascinates me.
10:50Lily holds up her drawing.
10:51Look, Mr. Cairo, she says, her little voice too loud in the quiet apartment.
10:58He stills.
10:59For a long moment, I think he's just going to ignore her.
11:03My protective instincts flare, ready to soothe the rejection I'm sure is coming.
11:08But then he turns, slowly.
11:12He looks at the drawing, his head tilted.
11:16It's a dog, Lily informs him, undeterred by his silence.
11:20I see that, he says, his voice low.
11:25What's his name?
11:26Peanut the second, because the first peanut is in my backpack.
11:30He nods, a single grave dip of his chin.
11:34A sensible name.
11:35And then he does something that steals the air from my lungs.
11:40He reaches out, not towards her, but towards the fruit bowl.
11:45He selects a single, perfect red apple.
11:48With a pocket knife that appears in his hand, as if by magic, he begins to peel it.
11:54His hands, which I've only seen resting on a steering wheel or holding a phone, are deft and sure.
12:01The peel comes away in one long, continuous crimson spiral.
12:06He doesn't break it.
12:08He sets the naked apple on a napkin and slides it across the counter to her.
12:13For the artist.
12:14He says,
12:15It's nothing.
12:17It's an apple.
12:19But the gesture is so unexpectedly, devastatingly gentle.
12:23It's the first human thing I've seen him do.
12:26It shows a care, a patience that his world cannot possibly allow.
12:32In that moment, he isn't a mafia boss.
12:36He's just a man giving a child an apple.
12:39And the thread of that simple, innocent act pulls at something deep and dangerous inside me.
12:46Later that night, he's gone.
12:49The apartment is too quiet.
12:51Lily is asleep.
12:53Peanut the second, tucked under her arm.
12:54I pace.
12:57The plush carpet muffling my steps.
12:59My phone, a new, sterile device he gave me, sits silent.
13:04I have no one to call.
13:07My life has been reduced to these four walls and the enigmatic man who holds the key.
13:13I find myself in front of the locked box.
13:16It's sleek black metal.
13:18I don't know what makes me do it.
13:20Maybe it's the claustrophobia.
13:22Maybe it's the need to see the monster.
13:26To confirm he's real.
13:28I test the lid.
13:30It's firm.
13:31But the latch is simple.
13:33With a bobby pin from my hair and a stupid, reckless courage born of three days of silent tension,
13:40I fiddle with it.
13:41There's a soft click.
13:43I lift the lid.
13:44It's not a gun.
13:46It's a stack of photographs.
13:48Old.
13:49Faded.
13:50On top is a picture of a woman with dark, kind eyes and a smile that seems familiar.
13:56She's holding the hand of a boy.
13:58A serious, dark-haired boy with stormy gray eyes.
14:02K-Row.
14:04My heart stutters.
14:05I shuffle through the others.
14:07The same boy.
14:09Older.
14:09Standing stiffly in a suit next to a casket.
14:12The woman is gone.
14:15Then, newer photos.
14:18Of me.
14:19Me leaving my old office building.
14:22Me picking up Lily from school.
14:26My breath catches.
14:27He had me watched.
14:30Before the text.
14:31Long before.
14:33And then I see it.
14:35Tucked at the very bottom, a photo that turns my blood to ice.
14:41It's a group shot.
14:42My brother.
14:43Marco.
14:44Laughing.
14:45His arms slung around another man.
14:48And next to him, younger.
14:51His face harder but unmistakable.
14:54Is K-Row.
14:55The world tilts.
14:57The coffee.
14:58The apple.
14:59The safe house.
15:01It all curdles into something sinister.
15:04He didn't just happen to reply to my text.
15:07He knew Marco.
15:09He knew me.
15:10This isn't a rescue.
15:13It's a transaction.
15:14A move in a game I never knew I was playing.
15:19The key turns in the front door.
15:21I slam the box shut.
15:23My hands trembling.
15:24But it's too late.
15:26The latch is undone.
15:29K-Row steps inside.
15:31He sees me standing there.
15:32He sees the open box.
15:34His eyes flick from my guilty face to the photograph spilled inside.
15:39The calm on his face doesn't shatter.
15:43It freezes over.
15:45You.
15:46I whisper.
15:47The word tearing from my throat.
15:50You knew him.
15:51You knew my brother.
15:53He closes the door slowly.
15:55Locking it with a final heavy thud.
15:59Yes.
15:59Why?
16:01The question is a plea.
16:03Why did you come for me?
16:05If this is about some debt he owes you?
16:08It's not about a debt.
16:11His voice is dangerously quiet.
16:13He takes a step toward me.
16:15I stand my ground.
16:17My back against the cool wall.
16:19The man your brother works for now?
16:21The one you're running from?
16:23Santoro?
16:24He was my father's oldest friend.
16:27He was the one who gave the order to have my mother killed.
16:32The confession hangs in the air.
16:34Brutal and absolute.
16:36It's not just my past in this room anymore.
16:39It's his.
16:40It's drenched in blood and betrayal.
16:43Marco is a loose end for Santoro.
16:46A liability.
16:48And you?
16:49You were leverage.
16:51Santoro was going to take you and the girl to force Marco's silence.
16:56Permanently.
16:57He takes another step.
16:59I stand my ground.
17:00My back against the cool wall.
17:03I couldn't let that happen.
17:05Why?
17:06I ask again.
17:07My voice shaking.
17:09He's in front of me now.
17:11So close I can smell the crisp night air on his jacket.
17:14See the flecks of silver in his stormy eyes.
17:17The space between us is electric.
17:20Charged with a thousand unsaid things.
17:23Because Santoro takes everything I love.
17:26He says, his gaze dropping to my mouth for a heartbeat before returning to my eyes.
17:31The admission is raw, stripped bare.
17:35He didn't save me out of kindness.
17:38He stole me out of vengeance.
17:41And yet, the way he's looking at me, it doesn't feel like hatred.
17:46It feels like possession.
17:49It feels like a claim.
17:51The doorbell rings.
17:54The sound is alien, shrill.
17:57We both freeze.
17:58No one knows we're here.
18:01Karo's head whips toward the door, his body coiling.
18:04His hand goes to his back, under his jacket, and comes out holding a gun I never saw him draw.
18:10It's done in a single, fluid motion.
18:14The monster is out.
18:16He pushes me behind him, his arm a solid, immovable bar across my body, shielding me.
18:22Get in the bedroom.
18:24Lock the door.
18:25Don't come out.
18:25The doorbell rings again, insistent.
18:30Then a voice, muffled, but horrifyingly familiar.
18:34Alara, it's Marco.
18:36I know you're in there.
18:37Open up, sis.
18:38We need to talk.
18:40My brother.
18:42Here.
18:43How?
18:44Karo's eyes meet mine.
18:46In them, I see the fractured truth.
18:49My brother isn't just a victim.
18:51He led them here.
18:52To me.
18:53To Karo.
18:55Karo's expression hardens into something fatal.
18:58He looks from me, to the door, and back again.
19:02The trust we'd so precariously built lies in shards at our feet.
19:07Stay here, he commands, his voice deathly calm.
19:12And before I can stop him, before I can scream, before I could even process the catastrophic turn this night has taken, he unlocks the door and steps out into the hallway, pulling it shut behind him.
19:26I'm left alone in the silent, beautiful apartment, the echo of the gunshot I know is coming, already ringing in my ears.
19:34The first thing I learn is how to be still.
19:39After Karo stepped into that hallway and closed the door, a silence fell that was heavier than any sound.
19:48I didn't hear a gunshot.
19:50I heard the low, muffled thrum of voices, then nothing.
19:56The silence was a living thing, pressing in on me until I couldn't breathe.
20:03I stayed locked in the bedroom with Lily, my hand over her mouth, not to silence her, but to feel the warm, living proof of her breath against my palm.
20:14When he came back, his knuckles were raw, and there was a spatter of dark blood on the collar of his white shirt, stark as ink on snow.
20:24He didn't look at me.
20:26He just said, it's handled.
20:28He won't be back.
20:30He didn't explain.
20:32I didn't ask.
20:33The trust was broken, but the danger was too.
20:38Marco was gone.
20:39Not dead, Karo implied, with a grim finality, but relocated, persuaded, with a violence I could only imagine, to disappear.
20:52The debt was paid in a currency I didn't understand.
20:57We didn't speak of it again.
20:59A week later, Karo drove us to a new place, a small house with a fenced-in yard in a neighborhood where kids left their bikes on the lawn.
21:09He handed me a set of keys and a bank card.
21:13This is yours, he said.
21:15The deed, everything.
21:17It's clean.
21:19He left without looking back.
21:21That was eight months ago.
21:23The stillness I learned in that safe house has become my anchor.
21:29I wake up in my own bed, in my own house.
21:32The sun comes through my own kitchen window.
21:35Lily has a pink bicycle with tassels on the handles, and she rides it in wobbly circles on the driveway while I drink coffee on the porch.
21:46We are safe.
21:47We are alive.
21:49We are healing.
21:50But healing isn't the same as being whole.
21:54There's a Karo-shaped silence in my life.
21:58A space where the storm used to be.
22:00I miss the tension.
22:03I miss the way his calm made my chaos feel seen.
22:08I find myself looking for silver sedans.
22:11I jump at the sound of a text message.
22:14The world feels a little less vivid.
22:17A little less real, without his dangerous presence coloring the edges of it.
22:22I am stronger now.
22:25I got a job at a local library, shelving books in the quiet, dusty hush.
22:31The ordinariness of it is a balm.
22:34I pay my own bills.
22:36I fix the leaky faucet myself.
22:39I am rebuilding, not restarting.
22:42I am a new version of myself, forged in fear and tempered by a strange, violent grace.
22:49Lily talks about him sometimes.
22:53Remember Mr. Cairo's apple, she'll say, or he was quiet, like the library.
23:02She is the bridge between that world and this one, her memories untainted by the blood and
23:08the betrayal.
23:10She remembers the gentleness, and because of her, so do I.
23:15It's a Tuesday.
23:16The sky is a clear, hard blue.
23:19I'm in the backyard, hanging laundry on the line, because I've come to love the simple,
23:25tangible satisfaction of it.
23:28The sheets smell like sunshine and grass.
23:31Lily is at school.
23:33The neighborhood is quiet.
23:36I feel him before I see him.
23:39It's a shift in the atmosphere.
23:41A familiar prickle on the back of my neck.
23:43I lower the white sheet I'm pegging to the line, and I turn.
23:48He's standing at the gate.
23:50He's not in a sleek suit.
23:52He's wearing dark jeans and a simple black t-shirt, the fabric pulling taut across his
23:58shoulders.
23:59He looks older.
24:01The sharp lines of his face are softer, or maybe it's just the daylight.
24:06The storm in his eyes has quieted to a calm, gray sea.
24:11We just look at each other.
24:14The space between us is filled with eight months of silence, with the ghost of my brother,
24:20with the memory of an apple peel and a locked box.
24:24He opens the gate and walks towards me.
24:28He doesn't hesitate.
24:29He doesn't apologize.
24:31He just stops.
24:33A few feet away, his hands shoved in his pockets.
24:36Ilara, he says.
24:40My name.
24:42Just my name.
24:43And it sounds like a whole sentence.
24:46Is it over?
24:48I ask.
24:49My voice is steady.
24:51I'm proud of that.
24:53Santoro is gone, he says.
24:55And the way he says it tells me everything I need to know about how that happened.
25:01The structure is different.
25:05More legitimate.
25:07He pauses, his eyes scanning my face, taking in the piece I've built for myself.
25:13There's no one left to come for you.
25:15You're free.
25:17I nod.
25:18I already knew I was free.
25:20His confirmation is just a formality.
25:23Why are you here, Cairo?
25:26He looks away, toward the house, then back at me.
25:29The directness of the question seems to unsettle him, and I feel a small, fierce thrill at that.
25:37I am not the scared woman in the motel room anymore.
25:40I spent my life building walls, he says, his voice low and rough.
25:47I built a fortress to keep everything out.
25:50The violence.
25:51The betrayal.
25:52The pain.
25:53He takes a step closer.
25:55The clean, sun-drenched scent of the sheets on the line mixes with his own scent of soap and faint, clean sweat.
26:03And then you texted a random number, and you got in my car, and you just walked right through them, like they weren't even there.
26:14My breath catches.
26:16This is the confession I never got.
26:20The one without the violence.
26:22I thought I took you to hurt Santoro.
26:25He continues.
26:27His gaze intense.
26:29Unwavering.
26:30But that wasn't it.
26:32I saw your fear.
26:34I saw you protecting your daughter.
26:37And it was the most real thing I'd seen in a decade.
26:40I wanted that reality for myself.
26:43So I took it.
26:44It was the most selfish thing I've ever done.
26:49The honesty is brutal.
26:51It's more devastating than any romantic declaration could ever be.
26:56And now, I whisper, now I'm here.
27:01Not to take.
27:02Not to keep you safe.
27:04He gestures to the house, the yard, the laundry blowing in the breeze.
27:09You've done that for yourself.
27:11You're so much stronger than I ever gave you credit for.
27:15He takes the final step, closing the distance between us.
27:20He doesn't touch me.
27:21He just lets me exist in his space.
27:24Lets me feel the heat of him.
27:26The solid reality of him.
27:27He says,
27:29I'm here to ask if you'd let me stay in this world you built.
27:35Not as your protector.
27:37Just as me.
27:39This is the choice.
27:42Not a choice born of fear or circumstance.
27:45A quiet, deliberate choice in the bright light of a Tuesday afternoon.
27:50This isn't a fantasy.
27:52It's gravity.
27:53The inevitable pull of two broken pieces that learned how to fit.
27:57I look at this man.
28:00This calculated storm who learned how to be still from me.
28:03I think of the gun and the apple.
28:06The blood on his collar and the gentleness in his hands.
28:10He is not a safe man.
28:12But he is the man who taught me how to be safe within myself.
28:16I don't say yes.
28:18I don't need to.
28:18I reach out and my fingers find his.
28:22They are warm.
28:24Solid.
28:25They are the hand that held the knife.
28:27The gun.
28:28The apple.
28:29I weave my fingers through his and I hold on.
28:32He lets out a breath.
28:34A slow, shuddering sigh.
28:36As if he's been holding it for eight months.
28:38His other hand comes up.
28:40His knuckles.
28:41The same knuckles that were raw and bloody.
28:44Gently brushing a stray strand of hair from my face.
28:48The touch of his fingers.
28:48The touch is so tender it makes my eyes burn.
28:52We stand there in the sunshine.
28:54Surrounded by the simple, domestic smell of clean laundry.
28:57Our hands linked.
28:59The past is a closed door.
29:01The future is this quiet, breathing thing between us.
29:06Later, when Lily comes home from school, she stops short on the porch.
29:10Her eyes wide.
29:11Cairo is in the kitchen.
29:13Leaning against the counter.
29:15Watching me chop vegetables for dinner.
29:17He doesn't move to hug her.
29:18He doesn't force a smile.
29:20He just looks at her.
29:22That same grave, serious expression on his face.
29:26Hello, Lily.
29:27He says.
29:28She tilts her head, considering him.
29:31Did you bring another apple?
29:33A corner of his mouth twitches.
29:35It's almost a smile.
29:36It's almost a smile.
29:38Not today.
29:39She nods.
29:40As if this is a perfectly acceptable answer.
29:44Okay.
29:45Then she drops her backpack and runs off to her room.
29:48The moment passing as simply as it arrived.
29:50He looks at me, and in his stormy eyes, I see a reflection of my own piece.
29:56It's not a perfect piece.
29:58It's scarred, and it's stitched together, and some days it feels fragile.
30:02But it's real.
30:04It's ours.
30:05We are not a fairy tale.
30:07We are a choice.
30:09Made again and again, in the quiet moments between the breaths.
30:13And that is so much better.
30:15We are not a fairy tale.
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