Chapter 75

• "I don’t know what you want me to say, Cole." Funmi’s voice trembled, her words fraying like a thread pulled too tight. The pain in her eyes was unmistakable, a wound deeper than any physical injury I could have inflicted. "You’ve lied to me, and now you’re asking me to just forget all of it?”
• I wanted to reach for her, to pull her close and tell her that it wasn’t like she thought, that everything I had done, every mistake, had been for the wrong reasons. But I knew that words were no longer enough. We were beyond that point. And I was the one who had pushed us here.
• The silence between us was thick. It felt like every inch of air was charged with the weight of our unspoken truths. Funmi was standing at the door, her fingers curled around the handle, poised to leave. A part of me wanted to beg her to stay. But the other part, the part that had betrayed her, knew she had every right to walk out.