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Sienna’s POV
I looked at that small face again, and for a moment, the world around me faded. There was something broken
inside me, but something else slowly started toe back together. And maybe, just maybe… this is a small step toward something I have yet to understand.
“I didn’t expect to see you tonight,” Liam’s voice finally broke after having been just a silent presence across
the table for so long.
I turned slowly. His gaze wasn’t as aggressive as usual, nor as cold as what I had received when everything fell
apart. But behind his eyes, I could see unanswered questions, unhealed wounds, and feelings that-somehow-
still lingered.
I only nodded, offering a thin smile. “Me neither.”
There wasn’t much more I could say. Things were alreadyplicated enough. Too many things that couldn’t
be fixed with a single conversation or look.
Liliana sipped thest of her juice, then leaned back against the chair. In a calm yet firm voice, she said, “It’s
I turned to her, surprised. Liliana’s words felt like a soft p, a reminder that tonight had gone on too long. Too
emotionally exhausting. But… when I looked down and saw Noah sitting beside me, his eyes still sparkling, his
cheeks still messy with sauce and crumbs, his innocent smile so sincere—I hesitated.
I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay here. Beside him. In the little world he had built just for me tonight.
I took a deep breath. Liliana’s words hung in the air, slipping through the long silence that had dominated our
table. The sound of frying from the kitchen in the distance, the clinking of spoons from other tables, and the
night breeze sneaking through the window cracks felt more real than the conversation that had just taken ce.
I should have stood up, agreed with her suggestion, and prepared to end the night like I had so many times before-with distance, pauses, and even longer pauses. But my body refused. Something held me back. Not just because Noah hadn’t finished eating, not just because I feltfortable beside him. But because I knew, behind all this chaos, tonight was an exception. A pause from a reality that had been too harsh for too long.
My gaze remained on Noah. His little hands, smeared with sauce, but he was eating enthusiastically as if nothing was bothering him. The world around him wasn’tplicated, not burdened by history or painful
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choices. For him, this was simply a dinner together. A fun night because everyone he knew-and loved-was at
one table.
I knew that once I stepped out of this restaurant, everything would go back to how it was. Liam would be a stranger filled with too-strong memories. Emily would still be a shadow from an old wound. And I would return to being someone suspended between the past and the present.
But right now, in this seat, I felt whole. Even if just for a moment.
The sky outside the window had gonepletely dark. Streetlights reflected off the ss, creating faint
silhouettes of our faces. Faces that once knew each other so well, then slowly forgot, then became trapped in a
frozen kind of caution.
My back felt stiff, as if carrying something I’d held too long. But I didn’t move. I just looked at Noah, then
briefly nced at Liam. Our eyes met again. This time there was no anger. Only the remnants of unspoken
exhaustion.
I wanted time to stop. Not to fix anything. Just to capture this moment. Because within all the cracks, tonight
felt like a piece of peace I almost never got.
But before I could decide or say anything, Noah suddenly began to cry.
His tears didn’t burst out, but they were enough to make everyone at the table turn in rm. His sobs were
quiet but persistent, like a small tank cracking from the inside.
I immediately bent down, hugging him tightly. “Noah? Sweetheart, what’s wrong? What is it?”
“I don’t want Mommy to go…” he said between broken sobs. “I’m sorry, Mommy… I’m sorry for being angry
and saying mean things before… I didn’t know you were sad.”
My tears fell instantly. I hugged that little body tighter, trying to calm his sobs, but his next words hit me even
deeper.
“Grandma said Mommy won’te home again… Mommy has to stay far away… Mommy doesn’t love me anymore, she said… But I want Mommy toe back… I want Mommy with me and Daddy… together again.”
My heart felt like it had been ripped from my chest. The wound I had covered with work, loneliness, and the quiet of the beach was torn open again-by the tiny voice of my son.
“Noah…” I whispered, my voice barely audible.
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I didn’t know what to say. There was no sentence that could exin why I left, why I didn’t return, or why
everything became soplicated. And how could I possibly exin all of that to a five-year-old child?
All I could do was hold him tighter, kiss the top of his head again and again, trying to keep my own sobs from
shaking his little body.
“Mommy is here… Mommy loves you… always,” I whispered gently into his ear. “I’m sorry, baby… I’m sorry
Mommy didn’te home that time.”
Noah clutched my shirt tightly. “Don’t go again… please.”
I nodded in that embrace. “Okay… Mommy won’t go tonight.”
I could feel Liam exhale deeply from across the table, but I didn’t have the courage to look at him. Emily
remained silent, voiceless. Maybe she felt like a stranger. Maybe she felt like she shouldn’t have been here in
the first ce.
Meanwhile, Liliana just sat frozen, her expression unreadable—perhaps torn between wanting to protect me
and letting fate take its course.
I didn’t know where to go from here. But what I did know tonight was… I couldn’t break my child’s heart twice.
For now, that was enough to keep me sitting here. Beside him. In his embrace-warm and sticky with ketchup,
but never sweeter than this.
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