Dominic's POV
The thing about guilt is, it doesn’t announce itself. It creeps.
Like fog. Like rot under polished wood.
And lately, I’ve been smelling it everywhere.
It infuses all things into early morning coffees that grow cold too fast, into rides to work as penance, into the long silences in otherwise short conversations. It came in the small silences. In the spaces where my laughter should have been. In the way Serena would look at me along the dinner table, eyes soft and searching, as if she was trying to understand a language she used to be able to speak but could no longer.
"You've been awfully quiet these days," she remarked one night, her voice cautious, as if the softness would make it less true. "Has it got to do with the Elena drama?"
I did not look up from my plate. Jus
