That almost made him smile. Almost.
“I don’t really know what this is,” he admitted. “I just… I think I’m finally allowed to think about something other than surviving the day.”
On the other end, she was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice had changed—less distant, more grounded. “Are they okay?”
“They’re not kids anymore,” Noah said. “They graduated last week.”
“I meant you.”
That question hit harder than he expected.
Noah leaned his forehead against the glass. For a long time, he had never considered that part of the equation mattered. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I think I’m only now starting to find that out.”
Diana exhaled slowly. “You disappeared so completely, Noah. I stopped calling not because I stopped caring—but because I didn’t want to interrupt the life you chose.”
“I thought I didn’t have the right to both,” he said.
“Both what?”
“Being their father… and being someone else.”
