I used to think betrayal had a specific shape. Secret texts. Lipstick on a collar. Someone slipping away to meet someone else. But when it came to me, it looked like silence. It sounded like nothing at all.
I was eight the first time I heard a heart break.
Not mine. It was my mother’s. Her crying came from behind the bedroom door, muffled by drywall and secrets. Her sobs were thick with betrayal, and my father’s voice followed, low and pleading, too quiet to make out the words — except for one.
That word slipped through the crack under the door like smoke.