The evening air curled between us, cool and weightless, carrying the faint scent of roses and regret.
I studied her silhouette against the moonlit garden, the soft tremor in her shoulders betraying the tears she refused to shed.
“What you did was brave,” I said at last, my voice low, careful—as if the words might shatter between us.
“Speaking out among those men.”
A bitter chuckle slipped past her lips—cold enough to rival the frost creeping over the grass beneath our feet.
“Brave?”she echoed, her laughter hollow, chiseled from something achingly raw.
“I was stupid.”
She turned her gaze to me then, her eyes gleaming with an emotion I could not yet name.
“I should have kept my mouth shut.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper, the weight of years of expectation pressing into each syllable.
“I should know my place.”
The sarcasm dripped like acid from her tongue.
But beneath it?—
Beneath the anger, beneath the bitterness, beneath the quiet resignation?—
It was a flicker of something else.
Something wild.
Something undone.
And against every warning in my mind?—
I wanted to set it free.
“You weren’t stupid,” I said softly, my voice barely above a whisper.“You spoke the truth, when no one else dared to.That takes courage.”
Her eyes—so often a serene summer sky—now blazed with something untamed, something undeniable.
“What good did it do?”she asked, her voice breaking like glass.
“They laughed at me.They treated me like I was nothing.”
Then—
Her gaze locked onto mine, the blue depths searching, demanding.
“And you… you said nothing.”
I swallowed hard, her disappointment rending through me—cleaner, deeper than any weapon ever could.
“I couldn’t,” I admitted, my voice quieter than intended.
It wasn’t the answer she wanted.
It wasn’t the answer she deserved.
