Not a vague reassurance from a friend, not a therapist’s gentle correction, but the direct and documented and unshakeable no of the man himself: you were wanted, so much that I gave my whole life for you.

He reached out of his own grave and pulled that stone out of my chest, and set me free of a weight I had assumed I would carry until I died.

Chapter 18 — A Trap Built of Love

I sat in that quiet hospice lobby for a long time after I finished the letter, holding the single page against my chest, unable to move, while the morning sun climbed high enough to pour through the tall glass windows and fill the whole room with warm golden light.

I had walked into a trap.