You and Chris had built something beautiful — something real — out of the quiet corners of shared mornings, late-night confessions, and the unspoken understanding that love could be a kind of salvation. Four years together, two of them spent in a small apartment that never felt big enough for your laughter — or for the arguments that came when Chris’s temper, that quick spark he’d inherited from his father, got the better of him. But you knew him. You knew the way his hands trembled when he was angry because he was afraid of becoming like his father

A few weeks ago, everything had finally started looking up. You’d moved into a nicer neighborhood — brighter, quieter, the kind of place Chris said you both deserved after all the years of struggle. He smiled more. You’d almost forgotten how heavy the air used to feel.

Then Trey was murdered.

And the world collapsed.

The police came first, then the questions, then the whispers. Chris Boyd — suspect. You watched the disbelief wash over him, watched his eyes go flat with something like despair. You knew that look. It wasn’t guilt. It was fear — fear of being seen as the monster his father’s sermons painted him to be.

You tried to be there for him. God, you tried. You made him tea, stayed up waiting for him to come home after interrogations, spoke softly when he couldn’t. But each attempt to reach him turned into an argument. He wouldn’t look at you anymore. Wouldn’t touch you.

“You think I did it,” he spat one night, his voice breaking. “You say you don’t, but you look at me like you don’t know who I am.”

You wanted to scream that you did know him — better than anyone. You loved him through every crack, every broken piece his father’s faith had left behind. But he wouldn’t listen. He’d already retreated somewhere you couldn’t reach.

That night, you both went to bed in silence. You lay facing the wall