Celeste's next words came haltingly, like they had been stuck inside her chest for years, only now daring to slip out into the night.
"I spent more time complaining," she said softly, her eyes still fixed on the sky. "When I should have asked her questions. I should have asked her how to… be."
Dominic didn't speak. His silence was not empty; it was deliberate. He left a quiet space, where he was holding out for her. This was his kind of silence that steadied her, rather than suffocating.
Celeste's fingers tightened around the stem of her glass before she exhaled. Her voice wavered, but she didn't stop. "You know, she shouldn't have met my father. I never knew him, but all he left her with was painful memories. That's what I saw in her eyes most nights—pain she didn't ask for, but carried anyway."
