Lila’s P.O.V.
I stared at the screen, the glow casting blue shadows across my knuckles. My tears had dried into salty tracks on my cheeks, but new ones welled up as I read his words again. *You’re still the only one I wrote it for.* Simple. Direct. Like he’d been holding onto that truth all these years, waiting for the right moment to let it slip out.
The typing dots appeared again, vanished, reappeared. I held my breath, afraid to exhale and shatter the fragile bridge we were building across the digital divide.
Then: *I’m coming home tomorrow. Can I see you?*
My sob turned into a laugh—wet, broken, the kind that bubbles up from somewhere deep and forgotten. See me? In this mess? With peanut butter stains on my shirt and worry lines etched deeper than the Grand Canyon? With three kids
