CHAPTER 13: The First Day
A month later, I walked through the doors of the nursing school I’d worked so hard to get into. I wore my uniform, my name tag reading simply Mia Voss. No one stared. No one whispered. They just saw a student, same as them.
When I came home that evening, Marcus was in the kitchen talking quietly with Victor. He looked up and smiled. “Your father told me you start clinical rotations next week. You’re going to make a great nurse.”
“I hope so,” I said, pouring myself a glass of water. “I want to help people. Not just protect them.”
“That’s what makes you different,” Victor said from the doorway. “I learned to build walls. You learned to open doors.”
Later that night, we sat on the porch together, watching the stars come out.
“Are you ever scared?” I asked him. “That someone will come back? That all this will fall apart?”
“Every day,” he said honestly. “But fear doesn’t keep us safe. Love does. And as long as I have you… I have all the courage I need.”
