Chapter 10
Our engagement ended quietly.
No rooftop announcement.
No ring thrown into champagne.
Ottavia removed it herself.
Held it for a long time.
Then placed it on my desk.
“Was any of it real?”
She asked.
I almost hated the question.
“Yes.”
Our dinners.
Laughing in the rain outside Chicago.
Her hand in mine at my sister’s funeral.
The night she stayed awake while I waited for news from a captain.
Real.
“So why can’t real be enough?”
Because love does not retroactively make coercion safe.
I said that differently.
“Because you used people as walls around the version of yourself you wanted me to love.”
She cried.
“I thought if the walls fell, you would.”
“Leave?”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“You are.”
There.
Her prophecy fulfilled.
But not for the reason she feared.
I stood.
“I’m not leaving because Miriam cleaned houses.”
Her face broke.
“I’m leaving because you made her disappear for it.”
Difference.
Important.
She nodded eventually.
Then asked:
“Can I see my mother?”
Not my decision.
Good.
“Ask her.”
“I’m afraid she’ll say no.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me as though waiting for rescue.
I gave none.
Consequences become real when other people get choices again.
Miriam said no the first time.
Ottavia survived.
A month later she asked again.
No.
Three months later.
“Not yet.”
That answer hurt more because it contained possibility.
May you like
Still not permission.
Ottavia began learning patience from the woman she once kept waiting behind a locked gate.
