Percy did not answer immediately. He stood before Sheila with his arms at his side as his gaze were fixed on her but seemed like he was looking pass her and even beyond the academy gardens. Looking at him fully now, he looked exactly as he had the day he left—straight-backed, composed, the embodiment of deliberate distance. The wind tugged faintly at his hair, but he did not move to smooth it back.
The silence stretched too long.
Sheila felt it in her lungs first. Each breath came shallower than the last, as though the air between them had thickened into something resistant and heavy.
"You knew," she said again, her voice trembling despite her effort to steady it. "You knew I would follow you if I could. You knew I would beg. You knew I would wait for you to look back."
He did not turn.
Her composure splintered. "You knew," she pressed, louder now, the words scraping on their way out, "that if you hesitated for even a second, I would have run to you."
A pause.
