She shook her head. “No.”
“Amara—”
“No, Ethan.”
The force behind her voice stopped me. “You don't understand what it was like.”
She pressed a trembling hand against her chest. “I was pregnant.”
Another tear slipped free. “I had no family helping me. My mother was gone.”
My stomach twisted. I knew very little about her family, but the pain in her voice told me enough.
“Julian helped when he could, but he had his own life.”
She looked away. “I was finishing school, working jobs, attending interviews, trying not to fall apart.”
Every word felt like a knife. “I couldn't afford hope.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then she whispered: “Hope is dangerous.”
I stared at her. No. Hope wasn't dangerous. The people who destroyed it were.
“You should never have gone through that alone.”
H
