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He lets go of my arm like the skin burned him.

“Wash the fuck up,” he mutters. “We’ll eat.”

He turns away.

Just like that.

I stand there with rust in my palm, blood drying sticky on my skin, the fence humming faintly beneath my fingers—whole, unbroken, silent.

Not forgiveness.

Not peace.

But something undeniable.

I pick up the hammer and drive the last staple home—hard enough to crack the post.

Not for him.

For me.

XII

Fuck the Silence

Three months of silence. Ninety-three days of Selah Crow turning absence into a discipline.

I respect it.

I hate it.

Selah Crow finally found a weapon that cuts me—and it isn’t a blade, or a threat, or one of those pretty lies she feeds herself to sleep.

It’s nothing.

Her nothing.

Her silence.

She moves through the house quietly now. Not timid—trained. Careful in the way people are after learning exactly where the floor gives and where it kills you. The boards don’t betray her. The walls don’t echo. She’s learned how to pass through space without announcing herself.

She won’t meet my eyes.

Smart.

Every morning, there’s a mug on the counter. Same chipped rim. Same spot. She remembers how I take my coffee. The eggs. The toast. The order.

Habits are harder to kill than affection.

It isn’t kindness.

It’s withholding.

Silence is how she flays me. She thinks it keeps me distant. Thinks she’s built a boundary. What she’s done is take away the only thing that ever kept me manageable—space.

The thought surfaces, sharp and unwelcome.

If she’d been where she said she’d be that night…