~Salvatore's POV
Two months passed in a way I did not really notice at first.
It was not because nothing changed, but because the changes were quiet. They did not announce themselves. They simply settled in, like they had always been there and I was only just learning how to see them.
Elsie stayed stayed in my space, in my routines, in the parts of the house I used to keep too empty on purpose. At some point, I stopped noticing that she was "there" and started noticing that things felt wrong when she was not.
It was small at first as if the silence in the mornings felt heavier when she did not walk in early or the way dinner felt too structured when she was not sitting across from me.
There were moments she annoyed me too. She still asked too many questions sometimes, still moved too carelessly around people she did not fully understand, still looked at things like she expected them to make sense if she stared long enough.
