Martin completely lost his temper at long last. His voice thundered through the house, rattling the windows. “You’re nineteen, not twenty-five or thirty! You don’t get to keep us in the dark!” Nora stood frozen, fists clenched at her sides. Then, with sudden fury, she replied, “I don’t need your permission to live my life.”
That night, she cried in her room, and I sat outside the door, helpless, the floor cold beneath me. Every sob tore through me, but when I whispered for her to talk, she only said softly, “If I tell you now, everything will fall apart.”