I signed my name at the bottom of the last page.
A slow, precise, almost ceremonial gesture.
A habit I had picked up from Anthony.
He wrote at night, his gaze lost in the shadows, his thoughts weaving worlds that only he truly understood.
I did it in the morning.
When the mind is still pure, washed clean of the previous day's fears, suspended between dream and reality.
It was a moment for myself, intimate, fragile, like a breath before the storm.
With every word laid on the paper, I felt myself take root.
I felt that I was leaving a mark.
That ritual calmed me.
It had something sacred, fragile, profoundly real.
As if putting the words down on paper confirmed, in a way that neither speech nor memory could equal, that all of it was real.
That I wasn't dreaming.
That this life, this house, this name… weren't fleeting illusions meant to vanish upon waking.
Each written line became tangible proof.
An anchor.
