Chapter 16
A year after the incident, Sophia visited the study again.
Daytime.
Elena beside her.
Titan trotted in freely.
No leash.
Sophia carried a new drawing notebook.
Expensive this time.
She hated it.
“Paper too nice.”
Elena laughed.
I handed her a cheap spiral pad from my desk.
She approved.
Good.
The cabinet where the vase had broken still stood.
I had replaced the vase with something simpler.
Unbreakable.
Dante teased me about it.
He was right.
Trauma can become interior design if you let it.
Sophia climbed into the chair opposite mine.
“What draw?”
I looked around.
“Whatever you want.”
She drew Titan first.
Then me.
Then Elena.
Then Dante.
No Victor.
That hurt more than it should have.
Not for me.
For him.
But absence belongs to the person drawing too.
I did not comment.
Dr. Reynolds visited later.
Titan let him enter without growling.
Everyone noticed.
Nobody applauded.
Good.
Normal should not always need ceremony.
Reynolds checked my blood pressure and complained about coffee.
Sophia told him doctors are bossy.
Accurate.
Then she noticed the old heavy leash hanging inside a locked evidence cabinet.
Her face changed.
“Bad leash.”
I followed her gaze.
“Yes.”
“Throw away.”
I thought about it.
Then nodded.
Not preserve.
Not display.
Not turn pain into a museum.
I unlocked the cabinet.
Handed the leash to Dante.
“Get rid of it.”
He did.
Simple.
Sophia returned to drawing.
I looked at the empty hook.
For months I had kept that leash because it represented betrayal.
Maybe I was giving Victor too much space even in absence.
Some things stop teaching once you already learned them.
After Sophia left, Titan slept beneath my desk.
Not guarding.
May you like
Sleeping.
That difference felt enormous.
