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Chapter 74: What I Came to Say, I Never Did

Author: Emel Emerald
last update Last Updated: 2025-08-02 14:57:28

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Morrison Family Apartment – South Fairbridge

The flat remained the same.

Leya stood there, screwed-up coat firmly tied over the gusts, heels still trembling with the marble cold of Blackwood. But the wind was now heavy with the scent of boiled yam, petrol, and rain in the afternoon — not with the scent of lavender polish and old money.

She'd said nothing to anyone, not even to herself, in fact.

Exhaustion had brought her to a conclusion about herself.

She'd rehearsed it all: sitting with her mother and speaking — the wedding, the bargain, the silence, the cruelty. How she would speak the words out loud, and spoken, she would not carry their weight.

She raised her hand to knock.

Before she could, the door opened.

"Leya?"

Her mother's voice was a lightness of surprise.

And something else.

"Hello, Mama," Leya said, glaze of breath on the air. "May I come in?"

---

Inside – Late Afternoon

It was warm inside, smells she knew: spice, fabric softener, rice on the stove.

It was entering an
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