Page 217 of Inevitable Endings
I’m still shaking. My hands press to my chest like they might hold my ribs in place. My voice cracks.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were just a child,” she says, collapsing into a chair. “And I was trying to protect you the only way I could. By surviving. By staying close. By not provoking him. By notprovoking them.”
I pick up a picture frame from the side table—me and her, from years ago. A forced smile on both our faces. A hollow snapshot of a life we never really had.
I stare at it, then hiss through my teeth.
“This,” I whisper, “is all a lie.”
And I let it fall.
Glass shatters on the floor, sharp and final. She doesn’t move to pick it up. She just stares at it like it’s a grave she’s been standing over for years.
We were both prisoners in that house.
And we both survived the only way we knew how.
If only I had known.
The silence stretches between us, quiet, not hostile now, but worn out. Raw. It sits in the space like a third person, listening.
She leans back in the chair like the years are finally catching up to her, like speaking the truth has pulled too much from her all at once. Her hands tremble in her lap, her mouth open slightly, as if she’s still trying to form the words she never dared to say.
I take a slow breath. My ribs hurt from the tightness in my chest. My body’s still bracing for a fight that’s already passed.
“I hated you,” I whisper. “For years.”
Her eyes well up again.
“I thought you didn’t care. That you saw what he did to me and just… looked away. Like I was nothing.”
“You were everything to me,” she chokes. “And that’s why it hurt so much. That’s why I let myself die quietly in that house. I thought that if I just stayed close, if I didn’t push, maybe I could keep you breathing long enough to grow up and walk away.”
I let out a sound that’s not quite a sob, not quite a laugh. I don’t know what it is. It just breaks free. I wipe at my eyes, the tears coming faster now that the weight has started to fall off me.
She reaches out.
I hesitate.
Then, slowly, I take her hand.
Her fingers are still warm. Familiar.
We sit like that for a long moment, saying nothing, just holding on to what’s left.
“I’m planning to leave,” I say finally, softly.
She looks up at me, startled. “Leave?”
“Not just this house. Everything.I’m building a life. For myself. One I choose.”
A pause.
“I met someone, that’s why I’ve been gone so long.”
Her brows pull together slightly, cautious. “Someone?”
