A/N:Read the note on the last paragraph of the chapter, do not skip it guys.
****
The or worse carried the weight of a woman who'd watched her brother die in an "accident" that wasn't one and had understood, in the black, sleepless months that followed, exactly what Harold was capable of.
"I told myself I could protect you better from inside the lie than outside it. I told myself I could wait. Watch. Gather proof. And then… time passed. And doubt became guilt. And guilt became paralysis. And paralysis finally became ten years."
She reached across the island. Her hand lay there on the quartz — open, palm up, trembling slightly. Not from weakness. From the sheer, exhausting effort of holding herself together long enough to say the words her daughter needed to hear.
Delilah didn't move to take it.
But she didn't pull away either.
