Chapter 2: The Weight of a Name
Chapter 2: The Weight of a Name
The whispering started again, but softer now. Careful. As if sound itself might trigger something irreversible.
I began to let go of the boy’s hand.
He tightened his grip slightly.
Not afraid.
Not ready.
Vincenzo noticed.
His eyes shifted to me again.
“You’re staff,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You took him onto the floor.”
I didn’t deny it. “He asked to dance.”
A pause.
Then, unexpectedly, “No one else did.”
It wasn’t a question this time either.
The truth sat between us, exposed and uncomfortable.
The boy stepped half a step closer to me.
Not hiding.
Choosing.
That movement changed something in Vincenzo’s posture. Not visible to the room, but I saw it—his shoulders lowering a fraction, as if something inside him had just been forced to acknowledge reality.
“You know who I am?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then you know what people say.”
“I do.”
“And yet you still did this.”
My throat tightened. “He wasn’t being seen.”
May you like
The silence that followed wasn’t empty.
It was loaded.
