By the third ring, I am already rehearsing what I will say to voicemail. Something short. Something that does not ask anything from her. Something that does not demand she comfort me or absolve me.
The line clicks.
“Leo?”
Her voice is not angry.
That somehow hurts more.
It is tired. Guarded. Stripped of warmth but not sharp enough to be cruel.
“Tess,” I say, and my voice cracks immediately. “I know you told me to leave you alone. I know I do not have the right to call. I just… please. One minute. You do not have to respond. Just let me say it.”
Silence.
I hear fabric rustle. A chair scrape. The careful sound of someone sitting down like she does not trust her legs.
“Talk,” she says.
Not permission.
A warning.
“I was wrong,” I say immediately. I do not soften it. I do not qualify it. “Not confused. Not misguided. Wrong. What I did was wrong.”
She does not answer.
“I told myself I was helping,” I continue, the words tumbling faster now that I have started. “That I was protecting you. But I see now that what I was really doing was taking something that scared me and putting my name on it so I could control it.”
My throat tightens.
“I did not listen to you. I listened around you. I heard the parts that fit into my world and ignored the rest. I treated your dream like a problem to solve instead of something to respect.”
A sharp inhale on the other end of the line.
“I do not expect forgiveness,” I say quickly. “I am not asking for it. I just need you to know that I understand what I did. Finally.”
The silence stretches long enough that my chest starts to ache.
“You always think you understand,” she says quietly. “That is kind of the problem.”
The words land exactly where they are meant to.
“I know,” I say. “And that is why this time I am not asking you to believe me.”
I take a steadying breath.
“I am terminating the LOI.”
The quiet that follows is different. Alert. Charged.
“You already signed it,” she says.
“I know.”
“You do not just undo things like that.”
“I know.”
