Edward's Point Of View
The grandfather clock in the foyer struck the half-hour with a heavy, ominous toll that sounded more like a funeral bell than a timepiece. We huddled around the mahogany table, staring at my phone as if it were a viper coiled to strike.
The silence hung so thick you could have carved it with a dull knife. Each second stretched into an eternity, marked only by the shallow breathing of those around me and the distant hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.
"Thirty minutes," I whispered, my own voice sounding foreign to me, hollow and distant, as though it belonged to someone else entirely. "Thirty minutes since she walked out that door."
The words tasted like ash in my mouth. I could still see Rita's face as she'd left… not angry, not tearful, but utterly calm. That terrified me more than any tantrum could have. A calm Rita was a dangerous Rita, one who had already made her decision and moved past the point of negotiation.
