Chapter 138

A foreign thought told her that if she had told him truth earlier with her own tongue instead of him getting to the root of her past through secondary sources, things might have different. The thought was a splinter she could not remove, working its way deeper with every passing day.

The idea haunted her relentlessly. She imagined a different version of events, one where honesty had come before fear, where she had trusted him enough to speak. Perhaps the damage would have been less. Perhaps his anger would not have cut so deep. The alternative timeline existed only in her mind, and she visited it like a mourner visiting a grave. The weight of that possibility pressed heavily on her chest.

To this day, her mind was still struggling to process. Processing required distance, and she had none. The events, the words exchanged, the silences that followed, all tangled together in her thoughts. She replayed conversations endlessly, searching for clarity that never quite arrived.