Echoes In The Room

How does love begin to rot, not from inside, but from the outside voices we can't mute?

I’ve always believed in the kind of silence that heals. The kind that comes after laughter, or just before a kiss. But the silence sitting between us now is not that kind.
It’s heavy and mournful.

We’re back at his apartment. The drive here had been long, quiet, filled only with the sound of the car engine and Maathai's fingers drumming nervously against the steering wheel. Now, we sit in his living room like two strangers caught in a moment neither of us asked for.

He walks to the window and pulls the blinds down halfway, then back up again, like maybe controlling the light will help him maintain this outcome.

“I didn’t know she still felt that way,” he mutters, voice thick.

I say nothing. (What do you say when someone’s mother looks at you like a sealed fate? When she uses the word “tribe” like a curse, like a line drawn in permanent ink?)

Maathai sighs. “You know... she told me stories when I was younger. About the war. About betrayal. About what she lost. I thought time had mellowed her, but it hasn't.”

He turns to me. “Do you... Still want this?”

That question hangs, still want this?

Do I still want to walk into a home where I will always be met with resistance?
Do I still want to hold the hand of a man I’m slowly watching crumble under the weight of family?
Do I still want to hope, to love, to stay?

I look at him, “Yes,” I whisper. “But I don’t want to be your rebellion.”

Maathai walks over. “You’re not. You’re... my peace.” He sits beside me, fingers grazing mine.

“I just need time to talk to her again. Give me a week.”

I nod. He doesn’t need to know I’ve started packing my emotions, just in case.

And suddenly, like a crack in the silence, my phone buzzes.

It’s a message from my mother with just three words: “Come home. Now.”

I freeze.

Maathai sees the look on my face. What is it? He asked.

I swallow, blinking away the storm. “I think… the war’s just begun.”