The hope in her voice like she’s already picturing a future I haven’t agreed to.
Snow falls harder outside the window.
The house settles around me.
And I realize something I don’t say out loud:
Chaos is loud.
But control…
control is quiet.
CHAPTER 29
ETHAN
Winter here is cold. Beautiful. White flakes every morning.
The lake goes still and dark, like glass.
And somehow Sage is still here.
Not here-here.
But… around.
Like a radio station you barely pick up unless you tilt the antenna just right.
Therapy turns into routine.
Same chairs.
Same peppermint tea smell.
Same stupid ticking clock on the wall.
We sit closer now.
Not touching.
Just… less distance.
She talks. I listen.
I talk. She doesn’t interrupt.
No spirals.
No crying jags.
No rewriting history.
Just facts.
“I opened a second checking account,” she says one afternoon, sliding papers across the coffee table like evidence. “Closed three cards. Consolidated the rest. Automatic payments. You can see everything.”
She doesn’t sayfor you.
