Page 81 of The Weight of Her Silence
He left without another word.
And Camille, for the first time in a long time, didn’t follow.
Chapter 48
Unwelcome Silence
Camille didn’t cry right away. She stood in the silence of her apartment, staring at the door Nate had walked through like he might come back. Like he might undo the last ten minutes. The last ten years. The last life she thought she could claim for herself.
But the door never opened again. She walked back to the kitchen, the hum of the refrigerator the only sound grounding her. Her hands were trembling as she poured a glass of water, but it tasted like ash. She set it down untouched and leaned against the counter.
All this time.
Lila had known.
All those years of playing the patient mistress, the understanding second choice, the woman waiting in the wings—Camille had thought herself clever. Thought herself powerful. But Lila had known. And never said a word.
It wasn’t silence born of fear.
It was dignity.
And now it was a ghost choking Camille’s chest.
She pulled the letter from Lila out of her drawer—creased, worn, read a hundred times in two days. The handwriting was gentle. The words… devastating.
"I don’t hate you. I never did."
"I only wish you had known you were already enough before trying to steal what was mine."
"If you loved him, truly… you would’ve let him go."
Camille tore the letter in half. Then in half again. Then again, until the words were just shreds on the tile. But still, it stayed lodged in her ribs like a blade. No matter how much she destroyed the paper, the truth of it lived on.
She had spent a decade chasing something broken.
And now, it was gone.
???
Back at the house, the silence was just as suffocating. Nate sat in the kitchen, a mug of coffee cooling between his hands, untouched. Ava passed behind him without a word, heading for the fridge but thinking better of it. She turned instead and left the room.
Caleb sat at the dining table, headphones in, eyes glassy as he stared at a muted video game screen he wasn’t playing.
The house felt haunted now. Not just by the absence of Lila, but by the presence of everything unspoken.
Nate had tried, in the early days after the funeral, to be there. To be present. He had tried to cook dinner, ask questions, offer comfort. But the kids didn’t look at him the same way. They didn’t reach for him like they once did.
Because now they knew.
And no matter how gentle Lila’s letters had been… the truth didn’t come gently.
Nate got up and leaned against the doorway to the living room, watching Caleb’s shoulders slump.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Want to take a walk later?”
Caleb didn’t answer.
Nate tried again. “Or maybe the batting cage? I know it helped, sometimes.”
