"I told him," Jeffrey said, bluntly. No embellishments. No excuses. The words hung in the darkness like a confession in a confessional booth—bare, shivering, ashamed.
He had held onto this secret for too long, and it had cost them far more than just time. It had carved silence between them, turned the warmth of what they had into something cold and brittle.
"I was drunk at the bar," he continued, voice tight. "I'd just pieced it all together—how you were the one I was meant to marry, the one my grandfather chose for me, and also the reason I lost everything. That's what I believed back then."
Joanne's heart tightened.
"I was angry," he said. "So angry. I said terrible things about you. I got so drunk… I told Caruso about the broken camera. The one..."
His hand was in hers, trembling. Cold.
"You blurted it out… because you were drunk," Joanne said softly, trying to rationalize it, for her own sake as much as his.
