Her smile disappeared. The light from the miniature home flickered gently across her face, but her eyes had turned far away, as if she were looking into some old shadow she'd buried deep inside.
"I don't know…" she whispered. "Maybe I didn't even know I could."
Her fingers traced the edge of the model roof absentmindedly. "Back then, I wasn't allowed to go anywhere except the library or to buy groceries, and even then, I had to come back quickly. I thought… maybe that's how life is supposed to be. I didn't understand what freedom meant. I just kept reading those books and using the old computer I had at home when he wasn't there."
She let out a small laugh, one that wasn't really a laugh. "Sometimes, I used to think the people on the internet were from another planet. So smart, so confident… and I was just a girl who didn't even know how to take a flight alone."
Leo turned to her fully now, his expression unreadable but his eyes softer than usual. "You were scared."
