Mark
I didn’t realize how tightly I was holding myself together until she started talking.
Melody’s voice was steady—measured, even—but I knew her well enough by then to hear the strain beneath it. The way her shoulders held just a fraction too stiff. The way her fingers curled slightly around the edge of the table as she spoke, as if grounding herself in the present while pieces of the past pressed in from every direction.
I watched her face as she spoke about it. About losing the baby. About the silence afterward. About learning how to function while carrying something so heavy it should have broken her.
Every instinct in me wanted to move—to reach for her, to pull her into me, to shield her from having to say any of it out loud. But I stayed still. Because this was her moment, and b
