" I'm sor-"
"DON'T, JUST DON'T SAY IT. YOU DO NOT EVEN DESERVE TO SAY IT AFTER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO ME! I BEGGED YOU, SCREAMED AND PLEAD, BUT YOU DIDN'T HEED MY WORDS. THEN WHY SHOULD I!"
I yelled with tears streaming down my face when witnessing m...
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The moment the room fell empty, I did not wait.
I pushed myself upright despite the sharp protest of my body. Pain flared, hot and familiar, but I welcomed it. Pain was nothing new. What I could not endure any longer was not knowing. I needed answers, and I needed them now. I no longer cared what happened to me in the process. Enough was enough.
Why had he written those letters? What was he trying to prove? Did he think that now, with misunderstandings cleared and truths dragged into the light, everything would somehow settle into place? That the suffering he had put me through would simply fade, as if it had never carved itself into me?
No. It would not disappear. And I would not compromise on that truth.
I moved toward his room, my hand sliding along the wall, fingers gripping the railing whenever my legs faltered. Each step sent pain up my spine, but I ignored it. Pain was something that would follow me all my life. I had accepted that. I had made peace with it long ago.
What I had not made peace with was silence.
I needed to know why. Why those letters existed. Why he had written words meant for me when I was not there to read them. What meaning he had buried inside them, and whether that meaning included the truth about my parents.
With sheer willpower, I crossed the hallway. My questions were sharp in my mind, my resolve steady even as my body trembled.
I opened the door.
He was lying there, staring at the ceiling, his face utterly blank. Not cold. Not cruel. Not wearing the sharp edge he once used to keep the world away. This was different. This was the face of someone who had reached the end of something and did not know what came next. A man who looked tired of living, tired of carrying whatever weight pressed down on his chest.
For a moment, I simply stared at him.
Then his eyes shifted, pulling free from whatever thoughts had trapped him, and locked onto mine. He did not speak. Neither did I.
The letters were still in my hand.
His gaze dropped, and for the briefest second, something flickered across his face. Regret. Fear. Guilt. It vanished almost immediately, replaced by that same hollow calm.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
The words that rose in my mind were violent and raw. No, I am not okay. You kidnapped me. You broke me. Your father broke me again. You exposed the truth of my parents' deaths and left me to drown in it. And now these letters. What were they supposed to be? Some twisted apology? A reduced version of Romeo?
