“I tried to explain. I thought if I could get you to see the rest of the pictures, you’d understand.”
“But you didn’t.”
“You told me never to come after you.”
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
Because I remembered saying it.
And the embarrassing truth was that although I had meant the words in that moment, some part of me had also expected Stephen to know I didn’t really mean them.
“You could have called.”
“I tried once.”
He spoke without anger.
“You had moved.”
Then he added,
“You made it clear you didn’t want me finding you.”
His eyes met mine.
“Eventually, I decided I had to stop turning your no into a maybe.”
That silenced me.
For years, people had joked about how quickly I made decisions.
I treated it like a personality quirk.
Standing in front of those photographs, I realized a quick judgment could sometimes become a life sentence.
