This Woman I am

Allison, on the other hand, had found herself drawn to Palmetto State more often than she’d anticipated. A year had passed since Seth’s death, a gaping, ragged hole in the fabric of her life, and with it, the careful equilibrium she’d maintained had shattered. Seth had been her confidant, her first and loudest champion, the one who’d seen her, truly seen her, as Allison – the woman she was, always had been, always would be. He hadn't cared about the 'before,' only the 'now,' and the future they'd planned. His casual acceptance had been a fortress around her most vulnerable secret. When he died, the fortress crumbled, leaving her exposed to a world that felt suddenly sharper, colder. Most people never saw the side of Seth that she loved.

The wound of Seth’s absence still throbbed, a dull ache beneath her carefully constructed composure. She missed him in the quiet moments, in the way a familiar song would play, or the lingering scent of his cologne on an old t-shirt. But life, stubbornly, continued. Classes resumed, Exy demanded its pound of flesh, and the fractured family of the Foxes slowly, grudgingly, began to heal.