ADVERTISEMENT
Three months passed. No calls. No messages. I told myself she was angry, that she needed space. I was busy anyway—new job, new city, new life. Guilt flickered now and then, but I pushed it aside. She was strong. She always had been.
When I finally returned to town for a conference, I decided to visit her. No warning. I imagined a tense but manageable reunion—awkward silence, maybe forgiveness.
The door was unlocked. The house felt wrong the moment I stepped inside. Too quiet. Too empty. Furniture gone. Walls bare where photos once hung.
I followed a faint sound into the living room—and my legs nearly gave out.
She was on the floor.
Pale. Shaking. Her breath shallow, pain etched into every line of her face. She looked impossibly small, as though the strength that had carried us both had been drained away piece by piece.
I dropped to my knees, calling her name, my hands trembling as I tried to help her sit up.
She smiled weakly. Even then. “I didn’t want to worry you,” she whispered.
At the hospital, the truth unraveled in fragments. A chronic illness. Years of ignored symptoms. Medication she couldn’t afford. Appointments she skipped so she could send me money instead.
Money I had always assumed came from savings.
ADVERTISEMENT
