Page 77 of The Art of Ruin

That will have to be enough.

12.Casey

I wake slowly,the kind of gradual return to awareness where the pain is already there, waiting for me like it never left. For a few seconds, I don’t move. I stay exactly where I am, eyes closed, taking stock before I do anything stupid like shift too quickly and make it worse. It’s still there, because of course it is. Wishing it away doesn’t work, no matter how many times I try.

It’s not as sharp as it was earlier but deeper now, settled low and heavy like it’s rooted in place. Every breath feels like something I have to think about instead of just doing. The exhaustion is still wrapped around it, thick and stubborn, like sleep didn’t actually help so much as give me a short break from noticing. It’s a familiar pattern: exhaustion that sleep doesn’t ease.

I shift slightly, testing my levels.

Bad idea.

The movement drags something tight across my abdomen, slow and mean. I suck in a breath through my nose, holding it there for a second while the ache flares and then, eventually, eases back into something more manageable.

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, the word barely audible but necessary. I hate this, hate how helpless it makes me feel.

I stay still for a little longer, trying to wait it out, then move my legs a fraction.

Okay.

Not great.

The pain is still there…but manageable. Probably.

I open my eyes.

The first thing that hits me is that I’m not on the couch anymore.

That doesn’t make sense.

I blink slowly, trying to piece together how I got from one place to the other, but there’s nothing there. Just a gap where the memory should be, like my body made the decision without consulting me.

“Great,” I murmur, because that’s exactly what I need—sleepwalking on top of everything else.

For a second, that doesn’t make sense. I’ve never sleepwalked in my life. Talked, yes, absolutely, but never walking, especially in this state.

The second thing I notice is that my heating pad is on and secured against my abdomen. Surely I’d remember that? I blink, trying to throw off the fog in my brain, before opening my eyes again.

Then the room settles into focus around me—the softer light, the angle of the ceiling, the familiarity of my bedroom. The place that is healing me in a very different way.

That thought lingers just long enough to make me turn my head slightly, and that’s when I see him.

Adriano is sitting in the chair near the corner of the room, his posture less rigid than I’ve ever seen it, his head tilted back slightly, eyes closed. One arm rests loosely along the arm of thechair, the other angled across his lap, like he’d meant to sit for a moment and stayed longer than he intended.

He’s asleep.

The realization makes me smile softly.

He doesn’t look like himself like this. The sharp edges are softened; the constant awareness dialed down just enough that he looks… still. Not relaxed, exactly. Just not actively holding everything in place.

And for reasons I don’t want to examine too closely, that does something uncomfortable to my chest.

I look away.

This is already too much.

I shift again, more carefully this time, easing myself up just enough to adjust the pillow behind my back. The movement sends a dull throb through my lower abdomen, but it doesn’t spike the way it had earlier, which feels like progress.

Until a different problem makes itself known.