Jay finally turned his head, his eyes searching for Liv's face in the dim light of the room. There was no demand in them only honest fear, the fear of a man terrified of losing the only place he could still call home.
The question hung in the air, not as pressure, but as a confession:
that his silence all this time had not been born of indifference, but of a fear too deep the fear of being left behind.
Liv didn't answer right away. She simply looked at Jay in the dim light of the room a gaze that didn't demand, yet was full of questions. There was something in the way he had spoken just now, something that made her own chest tighten in response.
"What is it that's really happening," Liv asked at last, her voice gentle but steady, "that makes you speak like this?"
Jay closed his eyes for a moment. His breathing grew heavier, as if he were standing at the edge of a cliff he had never intended to let anyone see.
