Even his answer the night before suddenly made sense.
You didn’t dismiss my fear.
He had spent years trying to prepare for this.
“I didn’t want to tell you yet, because I knew you would feel guilty if you admitted it,” he wrote. “I thought I’d wait until things got a lot worse.”
By then I was crying so hard I could barely breathe.
Because suddenly everything seemed completely different.
The long walks — extra work shifts.
Silence — sadness.
The calm smile at the kitchen table—a terrified nineteen-year-old trying desperately to reassure the only parent he had left.
And meanwhile, I had spent the whole morning packing up his things, because my own pain had blinded me to his.
When Leo returned home that night, he stopped the moment he saw the packed boxes near the hallway.
The color drained from his face.
For a horrible second, I saw genuine fear in his eyes.
Before he could speak, I walked straight towards him.
Then he held him tightly.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered through tears.
He remained completely still.
“I found the bag.”
For a moment, none of us moved.
Then slowly, Leo held me back.
And we were both crying in the middle of the hallway — two people who had finally admitted how scared they had been all this time.
