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CHAPTER 52

last update Last Updated: 2025-10-23 22:56:25

The ride home was a morgue on wheels. LJ sat slumped in the back seat, staring out the window at the passing lights, his face a pale mask of shame. The confident young man from the stage had vanished, replaced by a lost boy who had seen the foundation of his new reality crumble into dust. Arthur drove, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, the silence a heavier burden than any argument.

When we got home, LJ didn't go to his room. He stood in the middle of the living room, looking small and broken.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, the words barely audible. "I'm so sorry."

The anger I had expected to feel never came. Looking at him, all I felt was a vast, aching pity. He hadn't betrayed us out of malice, but out of a desperate, human need to belong to a story grander than his own.

"Sit down, LJ," Arthur said, his voice gentle but weary.

We sat, the three of us, on the sofas that had witnessed so much of our lives. The shadow box with Angela's butterflies seemed to watch us from the wall.

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