I had tried to build something tender.
Instead, I had stepped directly onto something sacred and broken.
“I...” My voice faltered, then steadied itself through sheer effort. “I didn’t know.”
Of course I didn’t.
I was blind in more ways than one.
“I just wanted—” I stopped again, swallowing the rest of the sentence because anything I said now would sound like an excuse. Or worse, like ignorance dressed as innocence.
Across from me, Rafael didn’t respond immediately.
Then his voice returned—softer, but not less controlled.
“How I wish she were still here,” he said quietly, each word measured as though anything stronger might shatter him. “I did everything I could... everything. I spent so much money, so much time, believing I could stop it. I was ready to give my own life if it meant keeping hers.”
Each sentence carried the weight of something unhealed.
Something untouched by time.
Something that had never stopped bleeding, only learned how to stay quiet.
I heard a sharp sound—knuckles tightening, maybe against the table, maybe against himself.
The restrained crack of pressure held too long.
I flinched instinctively at the sound, my blind gaze turning uselessly toward where I thought he was.
My chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with embarrassment now.
“I know you must feel disappointed by how I reacted to the food,” Rafael said finally.
“I can’t help it. I can’t even bring myself to eat it.” His jaw tightened briefly. “But I see what you were trying to do... trying to create something between us.”
He stopped there, as if anything further would expose too much.
Then he turned, and I heard his footsteps retreating.
He was moving away from me instead of toward me, and each step echoed through the dining room like a door being shut from the inside.
His footsteps continued until they faded into another part of the house—away from me, away from Tess, away from the meal I had thought might mean something more than it did.
My jaw parted slightly.
No sound came out at first.
My throat felt too tight, too full of everything I hadn’t said correctly.
I shifted my attention toward the part of the table where Tess sat, though I couldn’t truly see her, only sense her presence the way I always did.
Even without sight, I imagined her watching me.
I swallowed, forcing my voice into something softer than what was inside me.
“Sweetheart,” I said gently, turning my face toward her space at the table, “when you’re done eating, Miss Maria will come take you to bed, okay? I’m... tired now. I need to rest.”
My words sounded controlled, but my chest felt anything but.
