Sophie's butter knife speech leaves a heavy silence in its wake. The café has emptied of other customers—Marlene flipped the sign to "Closed" sometime during Sophie's tirade without anyone noticing—and now it's just the five of us: me, Lucas, Sophie, Kevin, and Marlene, who has abandoned all pretense of wiping counters and is sitting at the table with us like she belongs here. Which she does. She always has.
Sophie's hands have stopped trembling, but her eyes are still red-rimmed and her breathing is still uneven. Kevin has resumed typing, his expression focused and intense as he documents the aftermath of her speech. Lucas's hand is still wrapped around mine under the table, his thumb tracing small, soothing circles on my skin. His ears have faded from that pale, bloodless white to a soft, sad pink.
"I need to know," I say quietly, breaking the silence. "Everything. From the beginning. How we met, what he was like, what he did to me. All of it."
