Chapter 202

David didn’t try to fix it with excuses. He didn’t point out details or plead his case. He simply stood there and let the weight of her anger and truth press into him. For a moment he looked smaller not weaker, but somehow more human, like a man faced with the clear account of what he had done and no clean way to deny it. Lily felt something in her chest shift. The years of storing up hurt,the small humiliations, the long silences, the times she’d swallowed shame so she could keep a job, a shelter all of it pooled into this one storm of argument. She had wanted him to hurt, to see. She had wanted him to know that his actions had consequences beyond his own anger. “You think saying ‘you’re right’ makes it okay?” she asked, the words a little softer now, but no less fierce. “A word can’t fix what you did. A word can’t give me back those years. It can’t give me the respect you stole.” He swallowed, the sound hollow in the quiet kitchen. His expression tightened, and for the first time she