The hall remained quiet around us. *It was all a lie. I was a fool. Just come home.* Gabriel offered the confession as payment for seven years.
He still expected one grand gesture to restore what he had spent years destroying.
I stepped closer and crouched until we were eye to eye. He needed to hear me clearly.
"You trusted Mia. That was one mistake. The fatal one was underestimating me."
He tried to speak, to offer more useless promises. "Our life, Nora. Our seven years."
"Don't." I cut him off. "You still don't get it. I could have survived the infidelity. I walked away because of the disrespect."
He stared at me, waiting.
"You treated my mind and my work as features of your Donna, an extension of your will."
"You never considered that they were mine to give and mine to take away
