DON’T STOP (Lila and Darrell) novel Chapter 111

Chapter 111

Chapter 111

Daisy

The house was quiet in a way it hadn’t been in a long time.

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I sat across from him with my legs tucked under me, a mug warming both my hands, watching him take a slow sip He looked different in the quiet of my sitting room. Smaller somehow Not physically – Norman had never been 1 but something about him without the boardroom and the suit and the armor of all of it made him look like what h was underneath everything.

Just a person carrying something very heavy.

I looked down at my mug.

“Why did you even enter my house like that?” I asked softly. No edge in it. Just a question.

He looked up at me briefly, then dropped his eyes back to his tea. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I was calling for you, and weren’t answering the door.” A pause. “I heard screaming and I got scared.”

Something loosened in my chest slightly. I pressed my lips together to stop the small smile

“I was in the bathroom,” I said. “Singing. I couldn’t hear anything.”

He nodded once and took another sip.

The quiet settled back around us, comfortable enough now. Outside a car passed. The refrigerator hummed in the kate

“By the way,” I said, keeping my voice soft. “I thought you never liked cigarettes. When did you start?”

He swallowed. His eyes stayed on his mug.

“A month after the divorce,” he said quietly.

I looked at him for a moment. At the side of his face, the line of his jaw, the way he was holding the mug with both hand like I was holding mine.

I sighed softly and shook my head.

“Smoking won’t help you in any way,” I said. “You should stop.”

He nodded slowly, still not looking up. His voice came out just above a whisper

“I promise”

/ The room was quiet again

I looked down at my mug and felt the words forming before I was ready for the ac teh my throat tighten around them, and

felt everything I had buried for three years pushing quietly toward the surface

“I have really wanted to ask you something” My voice shook slightly on it I stopped

He turned to look at me

My eyes stayed down. I couldn’t look at him and say this at the same time.

“Why didn’t you answer your calls?” I whispered. “That night When Treasure was acting strange.”

Chapter 111

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The name sat in the room between us.

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Treasure.

Our daughter. Born the week after our wedding, small and perfect and so completely ours that I used to stand over just to watch her breathe. She had his nose and my eyes and a way of curling her fingers around mine that made eve else in the world feel like background noise.

She had been a week old.

That night she had started acting strange

unresponsive, her little body not right in a way that I felt before I could

had happened once before, briefly, and Norman had known what to do. He had stayed calm and handled had been fine.

and ever

But Norman wasn’t there that night.

–

I called him. Once, twice, five times, ten times the phone ringing out each time into nothingness I stood in the n with Treasure in my arms and called my husband over and over and over again and got nothing back. And then his pl switched off entirely.

I stood there holding our daughter, and for a long, devastating stretch of time I could not think past the fact that I nee him and he wasn’t there. I called him so many times. I was so certain he would pick up if I just tried one more time.

By the time I remembered that 911 existed, it was late.

They came quickly. They did everything right. But it wasn’t enough.

Norman arrived after. I don’t know how much later. I was sitting on the floor of the nursery, and he came through the and looked at my face and understood immediately, and the sound that came out of him was something I had never he from another human being and hoped never to hear again.

I had looked at him and felt nothing but fury.

“Don’t you cry,” I had told him, my voice completely flat. “It’s your fault. You don’t get to cry.

Now I sat across from him in my sitting room three years later with cold tea in my hands and waited for his answer

He looked at me directly, his eyes red and glassy, his voice already unsteady before he’d sand a ungle word

“Do you want me to tell you what happened that day?” He paused, swallowing hard. You can tell ine nor to say anything. and I’ll keep quiet. I promise I am not trying to explain myself or justify anything I just his your broker wanghely you to know that you can choose.”

I looked at him.

My chest was so tight I could barely breathe Everything about this moment the quiet house the cold wea, his red eyes, th name we had both just said out loud for the first time in three years it was all pressing down on the at once, and I coukhi find my voice.

His phone rang

The sound cut through everything like a stone through glass

He pulled it from his pocket immediately “Sorry. I’ll end it

“No.” The word came out quickly. “Don’t worry You can answer t

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Chapter 111

He nodded and looked down at the screen.

And then he just stopped.

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He sat there looking at the screen with an expression that I couldn’t quite read and made no move to answer or decline.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m not going to answer it,” he said.

“Why not?”

He didn’t reply.

I looked at him steadily. “Are you not answering because of me?”

He bit his bottom lip slowly and said nothing.

“Norman.” I kept my voice even. “It’s fine. Answer the call.”

He nodded once.

But by the time he moved to accept it, the ringing had stopped.

A beat of silence.

Then it started again.

He exhaled through his nose, stared at the screen for one more second, then accepted the call and raised the phone to his

ear.

“Hmm?” His voice came out low and careful.

“Where are you right now?”

Evelyn’s voice filled the room – clear and precise, loud enough that I could hear every word without trying I glanced at h hand and realized the speaker was on. I couldn’t tell if it was deliberate or not. Norman was looking somewhere at the floor

not at me.

He said nothing.

I watched him and kept my face neutral and waited. If he was going to lie to her, he was going to do it without any help Trvan me looking away

“Just somewhere,” he said finally

A short pause on the other end

“Somewhere” Evelyn’s voice was measured in the way of someone measuring it deliberately Your ex’s house or something?”

Norman’s head snapped up

His eyes found mine and went wide

I felt the surprise move through me, but I kept it off my face, kept everything carefully sull one eyebrow lifting only slightly.

He stood up abruptly, turning slightly, his eyes scanning the room like he was looking for something – a camera, a shadow,

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Chapter 111

anything that would explain how she knew.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

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