Chapter Eighty Four

CADEN'S POV

I know what she's asking but the answer to her question is lodged in my throat, not coming up and not going down, only suffocating me like those nightmares I beg to wake from and hear nothing in response except my own thudding heart and my laboured breath.

Time pass, the question condensing in the air, getting thicker and heavier in its entirety and I just feel so small, s feeling I've avoided like the plague in these recent and brighter times.

She sits up on the bed, dropping my hand eventually like I'd wanted at some point, but the waft of cold breeze that cools it off of the tiny balls of perspiration that had built in them from contact, reminded me why this is the last thing I want.

She says nothing, doesn't ask me again or try to push me fo tell her about the hellish years that had followed leaving here and the nightmares that had built after it.

Just nothing.

She just hugs her knees to herself and watches me and I see it in her quiet gaze, the resignation and resolve