The silence that followed was different this time. It wasn't just shock; it was the sound of a grave being dug. Amara looked at Seb, her eyes two cold, dark pools of memory.
"I called you," she said, her voice a ghostly whisper that filled every corner of the room. "The day I lost our baby. I screamed for you. I begged for you. And you let the phone ring until the world went black."
She thought of that miracle, the tiny heartbeat that had been hers for a fleeting moment extinguished in the dirt.
Seb scrambled to his feet, his face pale as a shroud. His breath came in ragged gasps as a memory he had tried to bury clawed its way out. He remembered the whispers of the nurses at the hospital, the gossip he had pushed away because the truth was too heavy to carry.
"Baby?" he stammered, his voice cracking. "What baby, Amara? When... when did you call? I didn't know. I swear, I didn't know."
Amara let out a short, jagged laugh that sounded like breaking glass.
