Ariana's POV
The silence in my mother’s house was different.
It wasn’t like Roman’s, all tension and unspoken words.
This silence was old. Familiar. Like it had always lived here, hidden beneath the creaking floors and tight smiles. A silence that said everything without saying anything at all.
I stood in the hallway for a second too long, just staring at the framed photo of us on the console table. Me at sixteen, awkward and smiling. Her beside me, pretending to be proud.
It felt like someone else’s life.
“Ariana?” she called from the living room.
I stepped in.
She was sitting on the edge of the couch, hands clasped in her lap, eyes rimmed with something that wasn’t quite tears. Her hair looked thinner than I remembered. Her blouse, wrinkled. Her face, pale.
She looked like she h
