Chapter Thirty-Two
I didn’t answer right away.
Not because I didn’t want to—
but because for the first time, I understood that answering too quickly might be the worst thing I could do.
Every choice I had made before this… they had felt immediate. Reactive. Pulled from emotion, from confusion, from something I couldn’t fully see.
But this?
This was different.
This felt… final.
Not in the sense that everything would end.
But in the sense that whatever came next wouldn’t be undone easily.
Maybe not at all.
The silence stretched, but it didn’t suffocate me this time. It didn’t press or guide or twist my thoughts into something easier.
It simply waited.
And I realized—
it really meant what it said.
This choice?
It was mine.
Fully.
My fingers curled slightly at my sides as I t
