Almost sacred.
Like rituals performed inside a cathedral for a goddess no longer living.
I stood there watching him, unable to look away.
The man who had just spoken of war and betrayal downstairs...
was now handling remnants of love like they were the only truth he still trusted.
And something inside me twisted painfully.
Being here suddenly felt like a monumental waste of time.
The house no longer felt like a place I was trapped in blindly—literally or otherwise.
Now that my sight had been restored and the fog of trauma no longer pressed against my mind like iron chains, everything looked different.
I wasn’t the same woman who had once accepted silence as survival.
I could think again.
I could plan.
He said he would sign my divorce papers if I brought them.
It meant his hold on me wasn’t as absolute as I thought—that I could leave if I truly wanted to.
“Fine. I’ll file for the divorce,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt, though my chest tightened painfully as the words left my mouth. “And I will leave. Just keep your word—and don’t hesitate when it’s time to sign.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to suffocate.
I didn’t wait for a response. I turned sharply, my heels striking the polished floor with deliberate certainty, and started walking toward the door.
Freedom, even in declaration, already tasted like oxygen.
I had barely reached the threshold when his hand closed around my wrist.
I hadn’t even heard him cross the room.
One moment he was behind me, the next his grip was there: not painful but undeniably authoritative.
Warm skin against mine, grounding and unsettling all at once.
“You saw the albums,” Rafael said quietly.
His voice was lower than usual, stripped of its usual command. It brushed close enough to my ear that I felt it more than heard it.
“You saw fragments of our past.” He said quietly. “But you don’t understand what it means to spend your entire life caring for someone like that. You don’t just forget them because death decides to take them away.”
For a second, I didn’t pull away.
I let the words settle.
“No one is asking you to forget her,” I replied at last.
I shifted slightly, turning just enough to face him over my shoulder.
My sight caught him clearly now—those dark eyes, usually so controlled, were less guarded than I had ever seen them.
