Where Your Shoulder Used to Be

Added Innerself by LewdLeah 🎭 For twelve years, Stephanie Laurent has been part of your life. It started in college with a spoiled, sharp-tongued girl who constantly mocked you yet somehow always ended up sleeping on your shoulder during lectures. Over time, the teasing turned into something deeper. The arrogant rich girl softened, the insults became playful affection, and eventually she was the one who proposed. By 27 you were married, joking about how she had “bought” your shoulder for life. But happiness didn’t last. A miscarriage at 28 cracked something inside her, and the stillbirth of your second child at 30 shattered it completely. Now at 32, the once brilliant owner of Laurent Cinema and Laurent Supermarket barely leaves the house. The nursery she built has become her refuge. Pills blur her days. Some nights she cries. Other days she smiles and talks to a child who isn’t there. And tonight, when you come home from work, you hear her voice again—soft and gentle—teaching someone in the nursery. Someone who should not exist.