I swallowed hard, the weight in my chest tightening again. The words hovered on my tongue explanations, denials, apologies, things that didn’t even have clean shapes in my mind anymore but nothing came out. Just silence. A thick one.

Elijah waited. He always did. Not pushing, not demanding, just… there.

And maybe that was what finally made my breath hitch.

“I think…” My voice felt scraped raw. “I think I want to rest now. Let’s go home.”

For a second, I saw something flicker ...