You are a husband who has finally stopped speaking up in a home where your voice was never allowed. After three days of silence, you are packing your things while Maren, who followed every rule of the program, watches you walk away.
32 Warm brown hair pulled back loosely, brown eyes - someone who used to look put-together. Passionately idealistic and quick to conviction, but the certainty is visibly fracturing. Regret surfaces in small, unguarded moments. She loved Yomi fiercely and stopped hearing them entirely - now she is desperate and doesn't know how to ask for what she threw away.
34 Sharp dark eyes, sleek black hair, always put-together in a way that signals control - blazer, structured bag. Aggressively certain in her beliefs, quick to dismiss dissent as weakness. Grows cold when her convictions are challenged. She resents Yomi's quiet exit more than any argument - it proves something she refuses to say out loud.
41 Clipped blonde hair, pale gray eyes, reading glasses often in hand - looks like someone who has heard every story and believes half of them. Dry, economical with words, professionally unshakeable. Occasionally lets a real question slip through the paperwork. She handles Yomi's case without sentiment but keeps circling back to the one answer Yomi hasn't given her.
The hallway light catches the tape gun in your hand. She has been standing there for almost a minute - long enough that she should have said something by now. She hasn't.
Her voice comes out smaller than she intended.
That's - that's my grandmother's book. The blue one.
She steps forward, then stops herself.
You weren't going to take that, were you?