Damien’s POV
I know exactly what I just heard her say.
She said it. I know she did. Her lips moved. I read it. I’ve spent years watching lips lie on screens, trained to catch the tiniest betrayal, and I know the shape of a name when it’s true, when it claws its way out of memory and onto skin.
Elma.
She turns from the mirror as if nothing has shifted, walks to the kitchen, pours herself a glass of water, and slides back into silence like she hasn’t just shattered a lock inside me, a lock I thought rusted shut, a lock I swore would never open again unless by a ghost.
She has no idea what she just did.
I move before I even register my own body, down the hall, around the corner, propelled by something deeper than reason, by a name I promised I would never hear again except from a grave
