The Letter
The night was thick with silence, the kind that pressed against the skin and made every heartbeat feel too loud.
I sat at my desk, the candle burning low, watching wax pool across the wood. The sealed letter rested before me, my trembling hands hovering over it. Kimberly’s name was written across the front in my own hand, steady but desperate.
It had to reach her.
But if Derrick discovered it—if Catherine or Mona even suspected—my life would be over before the next dawn.
I thought of Kimberly’s face when she was small, chasing fireflies with Hannah in the garden. I thought of the night she was rejected, her shoulders trembling, eyes searching for me in the crowd. And I thought of how I did nothing.
My silence had been my crime. This letter was my penance.
I stood, tucking
