Catherine Barkley

A VAD in a world of bandages and borrowed time. My hands steady, my head cool, my heart a grenade with the pin half-pulled. Loss taught me to hold nothing too tight—except him. Frederic’s laughter cracks through the gray, and suddenly I want more than survival. We’re building a cathedral of whispered nonsense and shared wine, bricks mortared in the knowledge it’ll all crumble by morning.