Rain hit the city like an argument no one wanted to finish. It fell in silver streaks down the brownstone windows of Brooklyn Heights, blurring the world outside until all that remained were lights—yellow, soft, and trembling in the dark. From her fire escape, Camille Lee watched the reflections of passing taxis ripple in puddles three stories below. Somewhere out there, the city pulsed with a rhythm she used to understand. Tonight, it just sounded like noise.
She used to love New York’s noise—the chatter of late-night diners, the rattle of subway grates, the low hum of ambition that never slept. But lately, everything around her had begun to sound the same. The rain, the city, even the silence between her and Noah Bennett, the man she’d lived with for three years, all merged into one indistinct frequency. Once, that quiet had been comfort. Now it was static.
Camille was a defense attorney, trained to see truth in what people tried to hide. Her days were built from courtroom tension—arguments sharp as glass, cross-examinations that left no air between sentences. She had made a career out of exposing contradictions, of finding calm inside chaos. But at home, she didn’t want to fight. Noah had been her quiet after the storm. His world was sketches and structure—an architect’s measured calm against her lawyer’s controlled fire. He listened, he paused, and when she spoke too fast, he waited for her words to settle. For years, that balance worked.
Their apartment was perched above a row of old bookstores and coffee shops on Atlantic Avenue, the kind of place that smelled faintly of roasted beans and forgotten pages. Every Sunday morning, they’d sit by the window, drink black coffee, and plan a future that sounded beautifully ordinary—new kitchen tiles, a trip to Arizona, maybe a family someday. Everything about their life was predictable in the best way—until it wasn’t.
The shift started quietly, the way all endings do. The silence between them stopped feeling like peace and started feeling like pressure. Camille told herself it was work, exhaustion, routine. But deep down, she knew it wasn’t any of those things. The silence had a name. Lena Voss.
Lena was Noah’s “best friend.” His ex-girlfriend, technically, but according to him, that was ancient history. “We dated in college,” he’d said once, casual as if reciting weather. “We realized we’re better as friends. She’s part of my life.” He said it so easily that questioning him felt childish. For a while, Camille didn’t. But when your gut whispers louder than your logic, even silence starts to sound like evidence.
Lena called herself a “visual storyteller,” a phrase Camille found exhausting. She was an artist in the broadest sense of the word—messy, magnetic, and dangerously unmoored. Her apartment looked like an unfinished thought: canvases stacked against the wall, wine glasses half full, nail polish chipped to confession. She had that kind of chaos people mistake for creativity. Noah called her “free-spirited.” Camille called her “unaccountable.”
The first time they met, Lena hugged her like they were old friends. “You’re Camille! Finally!” she said, her perfume a blend of patchouli and late nights. Then, turning to Noah with a grin, “You didn’t tell me she was this serious. You need someone to balance you out.” It sounded playful, but Camille knew better—that was the first poison dart disguised as charm.
After that, Lena became a fixture—Sunday brunches, art exhibits, spontaneous drop-ins. She filled rooms like she filled silences, loudly. At dinners, she’d tell stories that always started with we: “Remember that night in Tucson?” or “We got lost in the rain and ended up sleeping in the car.” We, never they. Each story was a small erasure, a subtle rewriting of Noah’s past that left Camille standing outside of it.
Noah never seemed to notice. He’d laugh, soft and nostalgic, eyes flicking toward Camille in quiet reassurance, as if to say, “That was before you.” But reassurance doesn’t erase discomfort; it only dulls it long enough for doubt to root deeper.
Camille tried to be rational. She told herself trust was maturity, that suspicion was a childish impulse. Yet every time Lena’s name lit up Noah’s phone past midnight, every time dinner plans were canceled because “Lena’s going through something,” that maturity felt more like denial.
Sometimes, when Noah left to “help her out,” Camille would stand by the door long after it closed, staring at the space where he’d been. The silence afterward wasn’t calm anymore—it was absence rehearsing permanence.
She knew better than to accuse without proof. Law had taught her that truth isn’t what people claim—it’s what they repeat when you stop prompting them. So she waited. She observed. She gathered her quiet evidence: the missing spare keys that reappeared when Lena “accidentally dropped by”; the half-hearted explanations about late nights at her studio; the Uber app open on Lena’s phone the night she supposedly “couldn’t get a ride.” Harmless, Noah insisted. Maybe. But harmless things don’t usually make your stomach twist every time a text tone chimes.
“You overthink things because you argue for a living,” he once told her.
“And you underthink things because you hate confrontation,” she’d replied.
They both laughed, too quickly.
Then came the dinner.
It was supposed to be a celebration—Camille’s biggest career win yet. After six brutal months of depositions and caffeine-fueled nights, she’d secured a verdict that earned her a fast-track partnership at her Manhattan firm. For the first time in years, she wanted to exhale, to thank Noah for his patience, to toast to them. He’d offered to plan a small dinner with “a few close friends.” Naturally, that “few” included Lena.
When Camille hesitated, Noah smiled, that soft rational smile that made resistance feel like overreaction. “Cam, she’s part of my circle. It’s just dinner.”
And that’s how boundaries break—one “just” at a time.
She spent hours setting the table. Candles aligned with surgical precision, the silver flatware they’d bought after their first raise, the playlist perfectly balanced between jazz and warmth. It was her love language: order. But order only works when everyone follows the rules.
Lena arrived twenty minutes late. Her laughter echoed down the hall before she appeared—a whirlwind of perfume, apologies, and a cheap bottle of merlot tied with a gold ribbon. “I brought wine!” she announced, too bright. Noah’s face lit up like she’d rescued the evening.
“You didn’t have to,” he said.
“Oh, come on. I never show up empty-handed,” she winked, brushing past Camille like she lived there.
Her eyes scanned the apartment, lingering on framed photos, on the details she once belonged to. She trailed a finger along Noah’s chair before sitting—not across, beside.
Camille told herself it didn’t matter. One dinner. One night. But small things unravel big ones, and the first thread had already been pulled.
Dinner began with polite laughter, clinking glasses, easy chatter. But beneath it, Camille felt that invisible hum—the static she’d tried to silence for months. Every time Lena spoke, the air thinned. Every shared memory was a veiled reminder: You weren’t here then.
“You’re such a professional, Camille,” Lena said sweetly as Camille served the roast. “I bet Noah never has to lift a finger now.”
She turned to him with a nostalgic smile. “Remember when you lived off cereal and sketches?”
He laughed. “Barely. Feels like a lifetime ago.”
“Yeah,” Lena said, voice soft, almost wistful. “Back when you were spontaneous.”
The table chuckled politely, but Camille felt the shift—the pressure drop before a storm. Her friends noticed too; their smiles turned careful. No one wanted to be the first to name what was happening. So Camille smiled, the way women are taught to smile when they’re supposed to “rise above.”
“You know,” she said lightly, pouring herself another glass, “sometimes stability is the most spontaneous thing you can build.”
Lena’s lips curved. “Of course. Everyone needs a safe option.”
Safe. The word landed like glass splintering. Too simple. Too sharp.
By dessert, Noah was flushed with wine, oblivious, basking in comfort. The candles flickered, the air thickened, and Lena—half-drunk, fully dangerous—leaned back in her chair and sighed.
“Noah, I just hope you’re happy,” she said.
“I am,” he replied softly.
“That’s good,” she smiled, her tone syruped with pity. “You’re such a good guy. Reliable. Responsible. The kind every parent would approve of.” She paused, let silence stretch thin. Then, with a small drunken smile:
“But you know, you could do way better than this.”
The room stopped. Forks froze. Laughter died.
Camille’s heartbeat slowed to deliberate rhythm. Lena looked straight at her, daring her to react—to erupt, to become the villain she’d been waiting to reveal. But anger, Camille knew, was a weapon you only got to use once. Silence, though—silence could wound without mercy.
She set her fork down gently, dabbed the corner of her mouth, and spoke in the same even tone she used in court.
“That’s an interesting opinion, Lena. Since you’ve thought about it, I’d love to hear your reasoning.”
Lena blinked, unprepared. “What? It was just a joke.”
“I’m not laughing,” Camille said.
Noah shifted, nervous. “Camille—”
She lifted a hand without looking at him. “No, it’s fine. Let’s clarify. You think Noah could do better than me?”
Lena’s laugh faltered. “That’s not what I—”
“Not in words,” Camille interrupted, voice calm as a blade. “But implication is its own language. You’re fluent in it.”
The air went still.
Camille leaned forward slightly, eyes never leaving Lena’s. “Let’s review the facts. You’ve borrowed money from Noah three times this year, haven’t you?”
Lena stiffened. “That’s none of—”
“And that car you drive—the old convertible that barely runs? He paid for the repairs too, didn’t he? From our joint account.”
Noah’s face drained of color. “Camille, please.”
“Let’s be transparent,” she said, eyes still locked on Lena. “If you’re going to question my worth, let’s weigh the evidence.”
Lena’s mouth opened but no words came.
“You talk about freedom and passion,” Camille continued. “But all I see is someone who drains everyone she touches—emotionally, financially, conveniently—and calls it art. When people finally build something stable, you call it boring. Maybe it’s not boredom, Lena. Maybe it’s envy.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the candles seemed to hesitate.
Finally, Lena whispered, “You’re cruel.”
Camille smiled faintly. “No. Just thorough.”
She turned to Noah, voice low, steady. “This is the woman you defend when she insults me in my own home?”
Noah stood abruptly, his voice tight. “Camille, that was too far.”
“Too far?” she repeated. “She humiliated me in front of everyone.”
“She’s drunk,” he said, his jaw clenching. “She didn’t mean it.”
“She meant every word.”
Lena’s hand touched his arm. “Noah, it’s fine.”
And that was when he snapped.
“Camille, you need to apologize to her.”
For a second, the world tilted. The hum in her chest vanished. Every sound in the room—every breath, every flicker—faded until all that remained was the weight of that sentence.
“Excuse me?” she said quietly.
“You humiliated her,” he repeated. “Apologize. Or this is over.”
It was the cleanest cut she’d ever heard. No trial, no defense. Just a verdict.
Camille looked at him—really looked—and saw it clearly for the first time. The man she’d loved wasn’t standing with her. He was standing beside the person who’d dismantled her dignity.
She didn’t speak. Didn’t cry. She only smiled—small, final, devastatingly calm.
Then she pushed her chair back, lifted her wine glass, and walked out of the room.
Behind her, no one moved. No one breathed. The trial was over.
The verdict was written.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is nothing at all—especially when silence is the sound of the door closing.
The morning after felt like standing in the ruins of something that hadn’t yet cooled.
The rain had stopped, but the city outside still gleamed with leftover sorrow—gutters overflowing, streets smeared with reflections of yellow cabs and coffee carts. In Brooklyn Heights, the air smelled like wet brick and endings.
Camille woke to an apartment that no longer sounded like home. Silence, once her refuge, now felt like aftermath. The other half of the bed was still warm, a ghost of Noah’s body lingering in the fabric. She traced her fingers over the crease his arm used to fit into, then pulled them back like she’d touched something sharp.
The night replayed in her head—his voice, that quiet ultimatum: “Apologize or this is over.”
She’d heard verdicts like that in courtrooms, but never at her own dinner table.
And just like in court, she’d respected it. She’d accepted the ruling. No appeal. No retrial.
For the first time in years, Camille Lee didn’t argue. She vanished.
She didn’t text. Didn’t call. Didn’t leave a note.
The silence became her closing argument.
For fourteen days, she let the world move without her.
She went to work, argued cases, smiled in elevators, shook hands, and came home to a still apartment filled with echoes. The mugs were exactly where he’d left them. The framed photo from Paris leaned slightly crooked on the shelf. His hoodie hung behind the door, soft as memory. Every object was evidence, and she examined them all like a detective who already knew the ending.
Noah hadn’t tried to come back. Not yet.
That was fine. She didn’t need him to.
Because Camille wasn’t angry—she was methodical.
On the fifteenth morning, she began her version of justice.
First, the boxes. She labeled them with precision:
CLOTHES. BOOKS. TOOLS. MEMORIES.
It wasn’t rage; it was administrative closure.
When the last box was taped shut, she sat on the floor, surrounded by stillness, and felt the odd calm that follows a verdict. Not happiness, not pain—just the clarity of conclusion.
Then she made the first call.
The scholarship Noah was living on—the one that had allowed him to quit his corporate job and focus on his master’s in architectural design—hadn’t come from luck. It had come from her. Camille had pulled strings through her firm’s foundation, listed it under a “creative investment grant,” and ensured his name rose to the top of the list. He’d never known.
Until now.
She called the foundation director, her voice crisp and professional.
“This is Camille Lee. There’s been a personal conflict of interest. I’m formally withdrawing sponsorship of the Bennett Grant, effective immediately.”
A pause. Then a polite, “Understood, Ms. Lee. We’ll notify him.”
She thanked them, hung up, and sat still for a moment, feeling nothing at all.
The second call was harder.
She dialed Markson & Hale, the law firm where she’d built her career—and where her managing partner had recently helped Noah secure a consulting externship with a design firm in Manhattan.
He answered on the second ring.
“Camille! Congratulations again on the Latham case. You crushed it.”
“Thank you,” she said evenly. “There’s a small issue I need to address. A personal conflict has come up regarding one of our extern placements—Noah Bennett. I can’t maintain professional involvement.”
The silence on the other end was long, heavy, knowing. Then:
“Consider it handled.”
Handled.
A neat word for dismantling a future.
When she hung up, she didn’t feel vengeful. She felt clean.
Love, she realized, was a contract—and Noah had breached his clause: loyalty. Once that broke, everything else dissolved automatically.
Two days later, she changed the locks. The spare key Lena once had would no longer fit.
By the end of the week, his side of the closet was empty, his toothbrush gone, the air lighter.
Still, at night, when she turned off the lights, she sometimes caught herself staring at the door, half-expecting to hear his key turn in the lock. But there was only silence.
Heavy. Purposeful. Final.
She began jogging again in the mornings, running along the Promenade with the skyline of lower Manhattan rising in the distance—steel, glass, and indifference. She ate breakfast alone at the café downstairs, the one with cracked tiles and too-sweet lattes. The barista stopped asking where Noah was after the third day.
Routine became her armor. Work, sleep, run, breathe. Repeat.
Yet every night, when she poured herself a glass of wine and sat by the window, the image of that dinner still replayed—the moment he chose someone else’s dignity over hers.
And she’d whisper into the quiet: You said “apologize or it’s over.” I chose over.
Two weeks passed. Then came the knock.
It was a Sunday night, gray and slow. Camille was reading depositions on the couch when the intercom buzzed.
Her heart didn’t race—just a small, practiced flicker of recognition. She pressed the button.
“Who is it?”
A pause. Then a voice she hadn’t heard in fourteen days.
“Camille. It’s me.”
Through the security camera, she saw him: Noah Bennett, standing in the rain, hair plastered to his forehead, shoulders slumped beneath the weight of everything he’d lost. He looked smaller somehow—like the blueprint of a man who’d run out of structure.
He tried the old key first. When it didn’t turn, confusion flashed across his face. Then realization. Then fear. That was the order it always came in.
The bell rang again.
Camille waited five long seconds before opening the door—chain still locked.
Rain streaked down his cheeks, his clothes soaked through, his voice trembling.
“Camille, we need to talk.”
She looked at him through the small opening, her tone calm, detached.
“No, Noah. We don’t.”
He blinked. “You can’t just—after everything—”
“I can,” she said. “And I did.”
He ran a hand through his wet hair, frustrated. “You can’t throw away three years over one argument.”
“You told me to apologize or it was over,” she said softly. “I made a choice.”
He exhaled, his voice breaking. “You were cruel to her, Cam.”
“You were cruel to me first,” she replied. “You just hid it under politeness.”
He stepped closer, desperate now. “I made a mistake. She was drunk. She said something stupid.”
“And you defended her while I was being insulted in my own home,” Camille said. “That wasn’t a mistake. That was a decision.”
Rain dripped from his jaw onto the threshold between them. For a moment, they just stared at each other—two people who had once built a life and now stood in its debris.
“I can fix this,” he said quietly. “I just need time.”
Camille tilted her head. “To do what? Repeat it differently?”
He swallowed. “She’s not who I thought she was.”
Of course she isn’t, Camille thought. None of them ever are.
“She doesn’t work,” he continued, voice cracking. “She fights with me over everything. She blames me for losing the scholarship, the mentorship. She thinks I’m hiding money, but I’m broke, Cam. I can’t even pay rent.”
Camille met his eyes without pity. “Then maybe she was right about one thing.”
He frowned. “What?”
“That you could do better than this.”
The words landed with surgical precision. He flinched, realizing.
“You did that,” he said quietly. “Didn’t you? The scholarship. The internship.”
She didn’t deny it.
“I created those opportunities,” she said. “And when you made your choice, I withdrew them. Actions have consequences, Noah. You, of all people, should understand structure.”
He took a shaky step forward, voice breaking. “Camille, please. I wasn’t thinking clearly—”
“No,” she interrupted. “You were thinking perfectly clearly. You just didn’t expect the woman who paid for your peace to stop financing your fantasy.”
The rain intensified outside, filling the silence between them.
He stared at her, eyes glassy. “You always have to win, don’t you?”
She almost laughed. “This isn’t winning, Noah. This is what losing gracefully looks like.”
For a moment, he searched her face for the version of her who might still forgive—the one who’d built him up, who’d softened his chaos. But she was gone.
“She’s falling apart,” he murmured. “Lena. She blames me, but she hates you more.”
Camille’s lips curved faintly. “She can have that. It’s the only thing I have left to give her.”
He took another step forward, voice trembling. “You really don’t care anymore.”
Camille leaned her forehead lightly against the doorframe, feeling the cold metal press against her skin.
“Care is the wrong word,” she said quietly. “I understand now.”
“Understand what?”
“That love without respect isn’t love. It’s dependency dressed as devotion.”
He blinked, his breath visible in the cool hallway air. “Camille, please. I’m sorry. I was wrong.”
For one fragile second, she almost believed him. Almost.
But then she remembered the dinner table—the way he’d stood beside Lena, eyes full of cowardice. And she remembered his voice: Apologize or we’re over.
She looked at him, calm and unshaken.
“You said ‘apologize or we’re over,’” she whispered. “I chose over.”
Then she closed the door.
The chain rattled once.
Then silence.
On the other side, she heard him exhale, a sound somewhere between grief and realization. His footsteps faded down the hall, each one lighter, more final than the last.
Camille stood still for a moment, listening to the rain against the windows. Then she turned back toward the apartment—hers now, entirely. The air felt different. Lighter. Free.
She poured herself a glass of wine and sat by the window, watching raindrops race down the glass and merge into silver streaks.
He had wanted closure, but closure isn’t something you get from the person who ended it. It’s something you build yourself, one quiet breath at a time.
Outside, the city kept moving—taxis, laughter, neon lights reflecting off puddles.
Inside, Camille finally heard the only sound she’d been waiting for all along.
Peace doesn’t arrive like a trumpet. It slips in quietly, disguised as routine.
Weeks passed, then months, and the city outside her Brooklyn apartment began to sound different. Not softer—just clearer, like someone had adjusted the frequency after years of static. The trains still screamed under Atlantic Avenue, the barista still shouted orders over the hiss of the espresso machine, but Camille no longer flinched at every echo of Noah’s name inside her own head. The silence she’d once feared had become a language she understood.
Every morning, she ran along the Brooklyn Promenade, the skyline of Manhattan stretching across the East River like a reminder of everything she’d survived. The air there was sharp, honest, alive. She’d finish her run at the same bench overlooking the bridge, sip her coffee, and think about how the view had always been there—it was her perspective that had changed.
At work, she was unstoppable. The firm that had once seen her as “the rising star” now saw her as a storm contained inside stilettos and case files. Camille won another high-profile trial—this time against a pharmaceutical giant whose arrogance matched her precision. The partners called it a “landmark victory.” She called it survival dressed as success.
That win earned her the partnership she’d once only dreamed about. Her name, Camille Lee, was etched into the frosted glass door of Markson & Hale, right beneath the Manhattan skyline. When the team toasted her that night, she smiled, not from pride, but from the quiet satisfaction of someone who had rebuilt their own life from the ruins.
She hosted a dinner again—smaller this time. No silver flatware, no tension humming beneath laughter. Just a few close friends, warm food, and jazz floating through the air. The candles flickered without shadows attached to them. For the first time in a long time, she felt safe in her own home.
Someone asked her gently, “Are you seeing anyone?”
Camille smiled, refilling her glass.
“Not right now,” she said. “And for the first time, that doesn’t feel like an absence.”
They laughed, changed the subject, and the evening moved on—light, unforced.
But New York has a way of folding people back into your path just when you think the story’s closed.
It happened on a Thursday evening in late fall, at a grocery store on Court Street. The aisles smelled of oranges and rain. Camille was reaching for a bottle of Cabernet when a voice behind her said softly, “Camille?”
She turned.
And there he was.
Noah Bennett.
He looked older—not by years, but by weight. His once-perfect hair was longer, his eyes sunken, a shadow of someone who’d been trying too hard to find his footing again. His clothes were neat but tired, the kind of neatness that came from trying to look like you hadn’t lost everything.
“Noah,” she said, calm as if greeting a colleague, not a ghost.
He smiled faintly. “Hey.”
They stood there, strangers sharing the same air. Behind them, a song played over the store speakers—something upbeat and cruelly ironic.
“You look good,” he said finally. “Happier.”
“I am,” she answered.
He nodded, his throat tightening. “I’ve been freelancing. Trying to rebuild. It’s… slower than I thought.”
She could almost hear the echo of what he wasn’t saying: I thought you’d miss me.
“Good,” she said softly. “Building slow tends to last longer.”
There was a silence, not uncomfortable, just old. Then he exhaled.
“I never realized how much of my life was built on what you gave me,” he said.
“It happens,” she replied. “Some lessons come after the damage.”
He tried to smile, failed halfway. “I wanted to tell you—I’m sorry. For everything. For that night. For not standing up for you. For—”
She stopped him gently. “You don’t have to list it. I was there.”
He nodded, swallowing. “Still, I needed to say it.”
For the first time, she believed him. Not because he wanted forgiveness, but because he finally understood what he’d broken. But forgiveness, she realized, wasn’t a door she needed to reopen. It was a window she could crack open—just enough to let the stale air leave.
“Thank you,” she said simply. “Take care of yourself, Noah.”
And she walked away.
He didn’t follow. He just stood there between the aisles of fruit and bottled water, holding the quiet she’d left behind.
That night, back in her apartment, Camille didn’t feel haunted anymore. She poured herself a glass of wine, opened the window, and let the sound of the city drift in. The same city that had witnessed her breaking now watched her rebirth without ceremony.
She thought of everything she had lost—then of everything she had reclaimed. The difference between the two was her.
Peace, she realized, wasn’t the absence of pain. It was the presence of self-respect.
She replaced the dishes they’d once bought together. Rearranged the living room. Painted one wall a deep navy blue just because she could. Little by little, the apartment transformed—not into something new, but into something entirely hers.
Every morning, she brewed coffee for one, watching sunlight slip through the same window where she’d once waited for Noah to come home. The city below carried on, unaware of her quiet triumph.
Sometimes, she caught snippets of gossip through mutual friends—how Noah and Lena had fallen apart within months. How their fights had gone public, loud enough that neighbors started complaining. How Lena accused him of being cold, and he accused her of being selfish. Both were right. Both were exhausted. Both were finished.
Camille never said a word about it. She didn’t need to.
Some stories unravel themselves without an audience.
One afternoon, a friend sent her a photo—Lena standing outside a coffee shop, mascara streaked, cigarette trembling between her fingers. Noah was in the background, staring at the ground like a man still trying to find balance on a floor that no longer existed. They looked like two ghosts who’d mistaken each other for salvation.
Once, Camille might have pitied them.
Now, she just felt distance. Clean, quiet distance.
She returned to her work, her cases, her rhythm. The ache dulled into memory, and memory dulled into meaning.
A year later, on the anniversary of that infamous dinner, Camille walked into the same wine shop where Lena’s cheap Merlot had come from. The clerk smiled at her.
“Looking for something particular?”
She smiled. “Something bold. Something that doesn’t apologize for the aftertaste.”
He laughed, handed her a deep red from California. “This one lingers.”
“Perfect,” she said.
Back home, she uncorked the bottle, poured a glass, and stood by the window. Rain tapped against the glass again, soft and familiar. Somewhere below, the city buzzed like a living thing—honest, unfiltered, endlessly moving.
She raised her glass to the reflection staring back at her.
The woman who’d once waited for apologies now waited for nothing.
Lena had taught her what manipulation looked like when it wore perfume.
Noah had taught her what weakness sounded like when disguised as kindness.
But Camille had taught herself what “done” really meant.
Done meant no more defending your worth in rooms that questioned it.
Done meant no more mistaking quiet for love.
Done meant walking away from a verdict that was wrong, and still winning anyway.
Outside, thunder rumbled faintly in the distance, a sound she no longer feared.
Camille smiled, took a slow sip, and whispered into the calm,
“This time, the silence belongs to me.”
And for once, the silence didn’t hurt.
It sang.
