“I used to think if I could just explain my pain clearly enough, you would care. Then I realized you understood. You just believed I would stay anyway.”
Mark bowed his head.
There it was.
The center of it.
Not Madison.
Not the cake.
Not even the missed surgery.
The belief that Emily’s love was a room he could leave messy and always return to.
“I did,” he admitted. “I thought you would stay.”
“I almost did.”
He looked at her.
Emily’s eyes filled, but her voice stayed steady.
“When Hope didn’t cry, I made a promise. I told myself if she fought to live, then I would fight to make sure my daughters never learned love meant waiting beside an empty chair.”
