The apartment felt different afterward.
Lighter. Emptier.
Claire replaced the door a week later. She didn't keep the splintered wood with the carved words—it had burned too much into her memory already.
She spoke to the police. Told them everything. For the first time, she didn't protect anyone else's version of the truth.
Daniel was placed in a secure psychiatric facility. She was allowed to visit.
Their conversations were quiet, careful. Fragile.
Some days, he blamed her again.
Some days, he apologized.
Healing, she learned, was not a straight line.
Claire went back to therapy. She let herself speak. At first in fragments. Then whole sentences. Then truths she had buried so deeply she wasn't sure they were real until she said them aloud.
She started sleeping with the windows open.
Started leaving music on.
Started answering when people spoke to her.
The silence no longer owned her.
One night, months later, she stood at the window and watched the city breathe. Cars passed. Lights flickered. Life moved forward.
She placed the child's drawing—the one she'd kept hidden for years—on her wall.
Daniel and her. Holding hands. A sun overhead.
She whispered his name once more, not in fear this time, but in remembrance.
Whatever happened next, she would not disappear.
She would not forget.
And she would not be silent again.
THE END