Page 50 of Broken By Silence
“I don’t expect forgiveness,” I tell her, voice raw, frayed at the edges. “I don’t expect you to accept it. If you hate me forever, I’ll take it. If you never want to see me again, I’ll disappear. But I needed you to know that you weren’t nothing. That when the world thought you were gone, I made sure there was proof you mattered. To me.”
Her lips part, trembling, but no words come out. She just stares, tears tracking silently, and I can feel the weight of every unsaid thing pressing down on her chest until it’s too much.
Oscar movesbefore anyone else does. He’s careful, deliberate, crossing the space with that quiet steadiness that always seems to cut through storms. He crouches in front of her, tilts his head to catch her downcast eyes, and signs slowly,enough. His hands are gentle, the words softer than any voice could be.
She blinks at him, as if surfacing, and he doesn’t wait for permission. He just slides his hand into hers, firm but kind, and tugs her up. She doesn’t resist. Doesn’t fight. She rises on shaky legs, her whole body trembling, and lets him guide her away.
The sound of her retreating steps is the loudest thing in the room. Each one lands like a nail hammered into my ribs.
The door clicks shut behind them.
The silence after is a loaded gun.
Then Archer moves.
I see it coming—the set of his jaw, the way his fists curl, the coiled violence straining to be let loose. But I don’t stop him. I don’t even raise a hand to defend myself.
His fist slams into my face with the kind of force that makes bone sing. Pain detonates across my cheekbone, white-hot and sharp, rattling through my skull. My head snaps to the side, blood blooming metallic in my mouth.
“I deserved that,” I spit the blood out, wiping the back of my hand against my mouth. “But, until she tells me to leave. That she doesn’t want me here… then I’m staying.”
Chapter 19
Lottie
The second the door shuts behind us, my knees almost give out.
Everything in me is shaking, like my body can’t hold the weight of it all anymore.
Elijah’s words. Lorenzo. My dad being alive.
The fact that I was married on paper to someone I never agreed to, buried as someone’s wife without ever knowing.
It’s too much.
Oscar doesn’t let me fall apart. His hand stays locked with mine, steady, grounding like he’s the only thing keeping me tethered right now.
“Breathe with me,”he signs, his hands calm and sure in a way that makes me want to sob.
His chest rises, slow and even. I drag in a ragged breath, then another, trying to match him, but my lungs feel like they’re made of broken glass.
He guides me to the bed and crouches in front of me, making himself small. His thumb brushes over my knuckles carefully, like he knows I’ll shatter if he presses too hard.
“You don’t have to hold it in,”he tells me. “Today has been a lot… You don’t even need to talk about it. Just let yourself have a moment to breathe.”
“I don’t even know what I feel right now.”I sign back because words feel like too much right now, and if I say it out loud, it makes it all real.
My dad’s alive.
I’m married… to Elijah.
“I’ve got you, Lottie. I’ve always got you. I’ll carry whatever you can’t.”
And that… breaks something in me.
The knot in my chest loosens, just a little, and I press the heel of my hand to my eyes, but the tears still spill through my fingers. My whole body is trembling, but Oscar doesn’t move. He just stays there, keeping me anchored when I feel like I could float away.
He sits on the bed and shifts slightly, guiding me to lean against him. My trembling slows, the room no longer tilting quite so violently.“You’ve handled more today than most people handle in a year,”he says.“Right now, it’s okay to just sit. Just breathe. Let your mind catch up.”
