Just truth.
“I thought… I thought I could take control of everything. That I deserved it somehow.” She let out a bitter laugh. “Turns out, I didn’t even know how to take care of myself.”
I didn’t interrupt.
She needed to say it.
“All the money I took…” she continued, her voice cracking slightly, “it’s gone.”
I expected that.
What I didn’t expect was what came next.
“I lost my job. I lost my apartment.” She hesitated. “I lost… everything.”
Silence settled between us again.
But this time, it wasn’t heavy.
It was honest.
—
“Why now?” I asked gently.
Samira swallowed hard.
Then she reached into her bag and pulled out something small.
Folded.
Worn at the edges.
She slid it across the table toward me.
I opened it slowly.
And my breath caught.
It was a photograph.
Old.
Slightly faded.
The three of us.
Mom standing behind us, her hands resting on our shoulders. Samira and I were kids, bundled up in oversized coats, smiling despite the cold.
I remembered that day.
It was one of those winters when things were hardest.
“I found it a few weeks ago,” Samira said softly. “In a box I hadn’t opened in years.”
Her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t look away this time.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about her… about us.” Her voice dropped. “About everything I chose to forget.”
—
That word again.
Forget.
Only now, it sounded different.
Not careless.
But regretful.
“I hated you for a long time,” she admitted. “Because you remembered. Because you were everything I wasn’t.”
I shook my head slightly. “Samira—”
“No,” she said quickly. “Let me finish.”
She took a shaky breath.
“I thought if I ignored the past, I could escape it. But it doesn’t work like that.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “It just… waits.”
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