The silence that followed stretched so tight I could feel it cutting into my ribs. Ezekiel stood there trembling, his hand pressed against the bandaged side of his abdomen as if pain still lived there, as if this confrontation reopened wounds that stitches couldn’t hold together. His tears glistened under the porch light, and for a second, I forgot how to breathe.

I didn’t move. Not backward. Not forward. My hand gripped the edge of the door like it was the only stable thing left in this ...