Cyrus sat in the car with the engine running but unmoving, the rain smearing down the windshield like the past bleeding into the present.

His fingers were tight around the steering wheel. He wasn’t sure if it was anger, regret, or exhaustion that made his chest ache more.

He’d gone there thinking he could leave untouched. But her voice — cracked, frail, real — lingered.

“I never wanted to become this… the mother you had to survive.”

He closed his eyes. Camilla had been right. And maybe that’s what scared him the most — that someone could see right through the walls he’d built, and still want to stand there...