Chapter 10

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

I kept thinking about the woman I had been ten years earlier.

Young.

Afraid.

Desperate to keep everyone happy.

I had spent years blaming myself for our decision.

Daniel had spent years blaming himself too.

But neither of us had ever allowed ourselves to grieve.

Maybe that was where everything had gone wrong.

The next morning, I asked him one question.

“If you could go back, would you change it?”

Daniel stared at me.

Tears filled his eyes.

“Yes.”

Then he shook his head.

“No.”

I was confused.

“I would change everything that happened afterward,” he said.

“But I can’t rewrite what we did.”

He took a breath.

“I can’t bring our child back. I can’t erase your pain. But I can stop running from it.”

For the first time, I believed him.

Not because he promised to change.

Because he finally stopped asking me to forget.