He started the engine. “You did well.”
Her throat tightened unexpectedly.
The change did not happen in montages. That was the first mercy of it. Real life refused that kind of neatness.
There were good mornings and useless mornings. Days when Maya could feel herself returning to her own body and days when every meal felt like a referendum on worth. Sometimes she wanted sugar so badly she could think of nothing else. Sometimes the scale moved and she felt ashamed of how much hope that inspired. Sometimes it did not move at all and she wanted to smash it with one of Taylor’s decorative candlesticks.
Once, after a miserable cardiology follow-up where numbers had improved but not enough to satisfy the panic she carried, she came home, opened the pantry, and stood staring at a box of crackers like it contained an argument she no longer wished to lose. Taylor found her there.
