Ezekiel POV
After Viola finished talking about that woman earlier, she suddenly fell silent. A faint sadness crossed her face, as if she had remembered something she wished she could forget. It was a subtle shift, a darkening of her usually bright presence that felt like a shadow passing over a landscape.
I noticed it immediately.
For a moment, I wanted to reach out to her. I wanted to say something that might make that expression disappear or offer some comfort that would smooth the lines of grief on her forehead.
I even thought about placing my hand on her shoulder, feeling the weight of the gesture in my mind before I ever made a move. But in the end, my body refused to move. The muscles in my arm stayed locked and tense.
The words I wanted to say never left my mouth because they felt too heavy and too clumsy to utter.
I simply stood there, staring at her, trapped in the silence of my own making.
