She held them against her chest as if she were afraid someone might take them away.
Then she approached Chloe.
“I’d like to keep these, if that’s all right.”
Chloe looked at the photographs.
“They’re yours to look at. But please remember that these are our memories, too.”
Elena nodded.
“I will.”
She turned toward me.
For a second, I thought she might try to explain herself again.
Instead, she said, “I should have come back.”
“Yes,” I replied.
She looked down.
“I don’t know how to make this right.”
“You can’t make the past right.”
She swallowed.
“But you can stop making the same mistakes.”
She nodded once, then walked out.
I watched her leave.
I had spent years wondering whether seeing Elena again would make me angry enough to finally say everything I had held inside.
But when the moment came, I discovered that I no longer needed to.
