Lucy cried herself to sleep on the floor; the same spot where she read Theo's letter.
When morning came, the shock of it all gave way to a novel sort of grief. Lucy was accustomed to sadness and loss after years of wartime realities, yet this was… incomparable. The other half of her soul was now altered into a dark void. An inky, black darkness crept at the corners of her vision. Each deep inhalation still left her lungs empty. And every step she took required her to hold on to something, for fear of floating away into the utter nothingness of that void.
Each stinging sentence of his letter came back with renewed force as she moved.
She wiped her tears first. I can no longer call you mine…
She pulled herself up to standing. I slept with a woman named Sarah…
She brushed the hair away
