Ch. 13: The Price of Silence

There were things Sophia had learned never to say aloud, and most of them were about he.

"You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. For a heartbeat the careful distance between them thinned to nothing at all.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," Sophia said. "I'm asking you to listen." "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to.

The conversation turned, the way conversations do, from the easy things to the ones that mattered. "You shouldn't have come," he said, and the words landed softer than they were meant to. "I'm not asking you to forgive me," Sophia said. "I'm asking you to listen."

Every choice had a price. Sophia had known that for years, and still the knowing never made it easier.

There was a history between them that neither would name, written in the things they did not do. Money could buy a great many things, he had learned, but never the one thing that was wanted most.

Whatever came next, there would be no pretending it had not begun.