Page 93 of Hollowed

“Yes,” I whispered.

My voice didn’t echo.

It landed.

Right between us.

Heavy.

True.

He didn’t move.

But his silence did.

It wrapped around me.

Pulled.

Held.

Like arms he no longer trusted himself to raise.

I stepped forward.

One step.

Two.

Three.

Until I was close enough to feel the space where we used to breathe each other.

He didn’t look at me.

He looked at my feet.

And I understood.

It wasn’t that I had come back.

It was that he didn’t believe I would kneel.

So I did.

Not because I owed him.

Not because he asked.

Because I wanted him to see me choose it.

Because this—this silence—was mine too.

My knees hit stone.

And his breath hitched.

A sharp, unholy sound. Like something sacred splitting in half.

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