Eva sat alone at the kitchen table long after Daniel had walked away.The house no longer felt suffocating, just painfully quiet, like it was waiting to see which way she would fall.Forgiveness.The word echoed in her head, heavy and undeserved.Daniel’s face replayed in her mind, the exhaustion in his eyes, the careful restraint, the way he had offered her a choice instead of a verdict. He could have shattered her. He could have screamed, demanded, destroyed what little was left.Instead, he had offered her grace.And somehow, that hurt more.Eva pressed a hand to her stomach, her breath catching. Everything was tangled now—love, guilt, fear, responsibility. There was no clean path forward, no version of the future that didn’t involve pain.Her phone lay on the table beside her.She stared at it for a long time before finally picking it up.Lydia.She needed Lydia.The phone rang twice before her sister answered.“Eva?” Lydia’s voice was cautious, already braced. “What happened?”Ev
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