Mia had always thought of herself as someone who lived in full color. She was a painter, after all—her life a canvas slathered in ochre sunsets, cobalt anxieties, vermillion desires. But that was before the split. Before the blackout. Before everything she knew about herself was scraped raw.
The vial lay empty on the passenger seat. She picked it up, turned it over in her fingers. There was no label, no instructions. Just a small hand-drawn sun on the cork, faded now. mia split blacked raw
She didn’t measure. She uncorked it and drank half. Mia had always thought of herself as someone
Leo was waiting upstairs. She knew that. And she knew, with a clarity that felt like broken glass, what she would find when she went up. He would say he loved her but not the way she needed. He would say it wasn’t her, it was him. He would say he hoped they could still be friends. All of it would be true, and none of it would matter, because Mia had just spent an hour (or a lifetime) with the version of herself she’d been running from since she was twelve years old. And that version had not destroyed her. She was still here. Raw, yes. But not broken. Before the blackout