Chapter 6: Empty Rooms
The weight of my own cowardice pressed down on me, heavy and suffocating.
I had spent months filling my apartment with clean furniture, quiet mornings, and false proof that I was healing.
No framed photographs.
No baby blankets hidden in drawers.
No soft voice asking if I wanted tea.
Just order.
Silence.
Empty rooms that never asked anything from me.
I had mistaken the absence of pain for peace.
But seeing Emma there, fragile and alone, tore the lie open.
The distance I placed between us had not healed me.
It had only hollowed me out.
“Who comes with you?” I asked quietly.
Emma’s mouth tightened.
“For treatment?”
I nodded.
She looked down.
“Mostly no one. Sometimes my neighbor drives me if I’m too weak.”
That answer broke something in me.
My wife had been walking into battle with strangers while I congratulated myself for moving on. Continue Reading ⬇️