The Day Silence Spoke novel Chapter 333

These dolls... Clifford had won them for her at an arcade a lifetime ago.

The dust that had settled over her fragmented memories seemed to blow away, revealing a crystal-clear image of the past.

It had been a sunny Friday afternoon.

She had waited for him at the gates of his high school. She waited for a long, long time.

It wasn't until the sun began to dip below the horizon that the teenage boy in the crisp white shirt finally emerged, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he walked out with a group of friends.

When one of his friends spotted the little girl waiting by the gates, he had teased, "Look, your little future wife is here waiting for you."

The teenage Clifford had playfully smacked the back of his friend's head before leaving the group behind and striding over to her. He crouched down, examining her pouty, aggrieved little face, and smiled. "Did you wait a long time?"

Young and completely innocent, she nodded earnestly and held up three fingers, showing him she had waited three full hours.

He scooped her up into his arms, a motion that was entirely second nature to him, and gently pinched her cheek. "Then I'll just have to make it up to you."

He took her to a massive arcade. Holding her small hand in his, he gestured to the rows of claw machines. "Pick anything you want. I'll win it for you."

Her eyes instantly locked onto two dolls sitting close together—one large, one small.

They were identical in design but different in size. For a fleeting, innocent moment, she thought they looked exactly like her and Clifford.

She wanted those two dolls, but they were wedged deeply in the corner of the machine, making them impossible to grab.

He played until the arcade was practically closing, blowing through over a thousand dollars, but the claw just wouldn't cooperate.

In the end, he simply marched up to the arcade manager and bought them outright.

Even though they were purchased, not won, she treated them like her most prized treasures, hugging them tightly to her chest.

She handed the larger doll to him. He took it, an amused smile playing on his lips. "You're giving this to me?"

She shook her head, pointed at the doll, and signed: *This is you.*

"This is me?" He glanced at the smaller one still in her arms. "And that one is you?"

The phone lay silently in her palm, the dolls in the photo seemingly staring right back at her.

Latisha didn't sleep a wink that night.

Long before dawn broke, she sat up. A night without sleep left the sheets feeling like ice. Her hands and feet were numb with cold, and a harsh cough rattled in her chest.

She had caught a cold again.

Glancing at the pale, pre-dawn light creeping through the window, she threw off the covers and slid out of bed. Her eyes flicked back to the phone on her nightstand. Unable to resist, she unlocked the screen. The enlarged photo was still there, quietly frozen in time.

She long-pressed the screen, saved the image to her camera roll, and then minimized the profile picture back to its blurry, unrecognizable state.

But right as she hit the back button, she noticed something at the very top of their chat log.

*Clifford Lambert is typing...*

Latisha's heart leaped into her throat. She stared unblinking at those words.