DAMIAN
The house was too quiet.
Quiet in the way that made every echo feel louder, sharper, like even the air wanted to remind me how badly I’d messed up. I sat at my desk, the same old, battered desk I always sat at whenever Autumn came over to tutor me. My fingers hovered uselessly over my notebook, but I wasn’t seeing the lines on the paper. I wasn’t even pretending to study.
All I could think about was her voice.
The way it trembled. The way every word she’d spoken outside sounded like it was pulled out of her with force, like each one hurt.
God, she’d been crying.
I rubbed my forehead hard, dragging my palm down my face. I had replayed the conversation so many times I could hear her voice in the damn walls. Every time she said something, every time her voice cracked, something i
