“You deserve that,” I said quietly.
“Yes,” she agreed.“But not from a man who threatened my family.”
Silence stretched between us, thick and uncomfortable.
My phone buzzed from the kitchen.
I didn’t move.I recognized the ringtone.
Creed.
“Good for you,” Aunt Ruth said gently, reaching for my hand.“Let him feel the quiet.Men like that don’t understand absence until it answers them back.”
I squeezed her fingers, steady.
For the first time in weeks, I wasn’t waiting.
I was deciding.
And Aunt Ruth was right.
Creed Kirkland was beginning to understand what silence actually sounded like—when it wasn’t his choice.
Chapter 12
The mall was a kaleidoscopeof holiday excess, strings of lights draped from every railing, garlands wound tight around polished columns, the air thick with cinnamon, pine, and sugar.Christmas carols floated overhead, cheerful, and relentless, stitched together with the murmur of shoppers dragging glossy bags behind them like trophies.
It should have felt festive.
Instead, it felt static.
All that noise, all that color, and still my mind kept circling back to one thing—one voice.
I don’t know how to fix how I feel.
Creed’s words hadn’t faded with time.They had settled.Embedded themselves somewhere just beneath my ribs, where they pulsed every time I slowed down long enough to breathe.
