Chapter Eleven: The Echo of Silence (Thomas)

                                        

                                              
The following day after the Birthday party...
I didn't even finish my coffee. The second my mother called and said, "I told her everything, Thomas. You need to go home," I was already halfway to the door. My tie was crooked, my hands shaking. All I could think was: She knows. October knows. Finally, she will understand.
The streets blurred. I don't remember red lights, or the drive, or even parking. I just remember the moment I opened the front door and saw October standing by the window like something carved out of marble. Arms crossed. Face unreadable. Cold, but polite. That was worse than anger.
"Hey," I started, my voice lower than I meant. "I... I wanted to say I'm sorry. About last night. About the party. About everything."
She didn't answer. So I kept talking, like a man trying to outrun the silence.
"I should've stood up for you. I should've said something when I saw the look on your face, when my father paraded her around like she belonged beside me. I was just, I was following advice, from the lawyer. He said if I pulled back too suddenly, they'd suspect something. They'd start covering their tracks. So I played along."
Nothing. Not even a blink. I told her everything the lawyer had told me.
I stepped closer. "I found things, October. Emails. Documents. Conversations he wasn't supposed to record. Mom and I—we're taking it to the lawyer. Today. We're giving him everything. Because we don't know what they're planning, and we need to protect ourselves. We're building a case."
She finally turned her head, the smallest movement. Her voice was flat. Detached.
"Okay. But why should I care?"
That knocked the breath out of me.
"What?" I said, almost choking on the rising panic in my chest. "Because they're trying to take everything from me—my job, my reputation—everything I've built—"
October let out a cold, breathless laugh. The kind that didn't come from amusement, but disbelief.
"Me... me... me," she echoed, voice sharp as glass. "Do I exist in your well-crafted world, Thomas? Or am I just another detail you forgot to factor into your strategy?"
I stared at her, stunned, the words catching in my throat before I could make sense of them.
"You talk about what you're losing like I haven't already lost more," she said, voice low and shaking with restraint. "Like I didn't stand in that room and feel a thousand eyes on me while your father toasted you and your mistress's success."
"October.." I started, but she cut me off with a sharp look that silenced everything in my throat.
"You want to talk about loss?" Her voice rose, brittle and raw. "You chose to be silent, Thomas. You chose to protect your plan over your partner." She stepped back, arms wrapping around herself like she had to physically hold in the anger. "You let me be humiliated. Dismissed. You stood there and smiled while Laura played queen beside you, And why? Because you were afraid of losing your company. Your legacy. Your name."
Her voice cracked. "But what about me? What about your wife, Thomas?" She pressed her hand to her chest.  She looked at me then, not with hatred, but something worse. Hurt. Bone-deep, soul-level hurt.
"You didn't betray me with your actions as much as you betrayed me with your silence."
I felt the sting behind my eyes then. The crushing weight of it. The way her voice cracked, not from weakness, but from the strength it took to hold herself together in the face of everything I'd ignored.