I no longer wore black. I wore a beige trench coat in the spring wind. Beside me stood Grace, my attorney, and Sophie, now walking with a cane and studying law through a foundation I created from Ryan and Brooke’s seized assets.
Grace handed me a sealed envelope from prison.
Ryan’s handwriting was shaky.
“It’s his fifth letter this month,” she said. “Do you want to read it?”
I looked at the envelope.
I thought about the laugh at the funeral.
I thought about the man who believed he could bury me in grief.
I struck a match and burned the letter until the ash floated over the water.
“No,” I said. “I have nothing left to say to a ghost.”
For the first time since the crash, the silence around me did not feel empty.
It felt safe.
