Chapter 25: Back to this.

Perse, dressed in a pair of casual denim shorts, a green tank top with her hair pulled back into a high ponytail, secured with a black headband, stood in the kitchen, her phone propped up in front of her, YouTube playing a tutorial on how to make the perfect pepperoni pizza.

Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she watched the screen, her eyes darting back and forth between the video and the dough on the counter as she tried to figure out what she did wrong. She had followed the recipe step by step, and yet, the results differed from that of the tutorial. The kitchen was a mess—flour dusted across the countertops, bits of dough stuck to her fingers, and two empty packages of pepperoni lay discarded to the side.