Page 55 of The Weight of Her Silence
“I have apologized to your mother,” he said, shame thick in his throat.
“But you’re still seeing her, aren’t you?” Ava’s voice turned to ice.
Nate hesitated.
“I haven’t seen Camille since the hospital scare,” he said. “Not once.”
“But you want to.”
His silence said everything.
She wiped her face once, hard. “You don’t get to use grief as an excuse to keep destroying us.”
“I’m not trying to destroy you,” he whispered.
“But you are.”
Ava turned to leave, pausing at the door.
“You’re going to lose us. All of us. If you haven’t already.”
The door clicked shut behind her.
And Nate sat there in the quiet, haunted by the truth in her words.
Chapter 36
The Breaking Point
Caleb hadn’t spoken to his father in three days. He wasn’t giving the silent treatment—he was preserving what little self-control he had left. He barely touched his food. Barely looked anyone in the eye. He played no video games. He didn’t answer his friends’ messages. His world had tilted, broken into splinters, and no one seemed to notice that he was quietly bleeding.
The day his mother collapsed, something inside him had cracked. But when he’d heard the whispers through his sister’s closed bedroom door… when he peeked into Nate’s office and saw the hotel key card half-hidden under a stack of papers… when Ava had gone rigid holding their father’s phone, whispering “Don’t look” even as she trembled…
The crack became a fault line.
Now, every time Nate entered the room, Caleb left. Every time his father tried to ask if he was okay, Caleb stared through him like a ghost.
He wasn’t okay.
He was eleven years old. And he knew more than he should.
???
On Sunday morning, Nate tried again.
“Hey, buddy. Want to shoot some hoops? Just you and me.”
Caleb didn’t even glance up from the table.
“Not your buddy.”
Nate froze. “Caleb—”
“Don’t.” The word was sharp, dangerous.
“Don’t pretend like everything’s normal.”
Ava looked up from across the table, her eyes flicking to her brother. She didn’t say a word. She just watched.
