Page 78 of The Weight of Her Silence
You see, Camille, the real tragedy isn’t you. Or even him.
It’s that my children have to live with the wreckage both of you left behind.
So I’m not writing to curse you. I’m not even writing to forgive you. I’m writing to say: this is where it ends.
You don’t get to haunt them. You don’t get to twist your place in this story.
They don’t need to hear from you. They don’t owe you anything.
And neither do I.
Let me go.
Let them grow.
Let the past rest.
—Lila
Nate folded the letter carefully. He didn’t know what he would do with it. He didn’t know if he would ever give it to Camille. Maybe one day, if she came clawing back into their lives again.
But right now, he tucked it away with trembling hands and sat in the quiet. Lila had written a letter to the woman who helped ruin her.
And still… somehow… she’d managed to keep her dignity intact. He could only sit with the truth of that.
And weep.
The second letter wasn’t in an envelope. It was folded neatly into one of Lila’s old journals, tucked between pages inked with sketches of Ava in ballet slippers and Caleb asleep with his favorite book. Nate almost missed it. But something made him turn back, drawn to the uneven edge of a page that looked thicker than the rest.
He pulled it free.
It wasn’t dated. It wasn’t labeled.
Just the first line.
"You and I were never strangers."
His breath caught.
Camille,
You and I were never strangers.
Long before the lies. Long before the secrets. We were girls who shared late-night stories and cheap wine on the balcony of our college dorm. You were the one who held myhand when I cried over my father. I was the one who talked you out of getting that god-awful tattoo in Madrid.
You were there when I wore white and said vows I believed in with my whole heart. You were in the fifth row, wearing blue, smiling like you meant it.
You told me I was lucky.
And maybe that was the first lie.
Nate’s hands shook as he read. He hadn’t known. Not this part. Not that Camille had been there from the beginning.
I often wonder what changed. What broke in you. What made you cross the line from friend to thief.
Was it envy? Or loneliness? Or did you just want what I had because you thought you deserved it more?
You waited. You watched. You smiled to my face while you slept with the man I loved.
