Days turned into weeks after the night Kai had been thrown out of the Curtis household.
He never returned.
At first, the silence felt strange, almost foreign. It was like a sudden gap where a storm once raged. The first few mornings, Abigail found her eyes drifting toward the gate outside, almost against her will, searching for the tall, unshakable figure she half-expected to see. Stubborn, insistent, and demanding to be heard. But the gate stayed still, the path remained empty, and not even the faintest trace of him lingered at the edges of their lives.
Her parents were relieved. She could see it in her father’s shoulders, no longer wound tight with anger and tension, in the way he finally spoke over meals without the bitter bite of worry in his tone. Her mother, too, seemed lighter, h
