Mara POV
Kael handed her the letter without explanation.
No preamble, no this came for you, no reading of her face to see if she already knew what it was. He just held it out, she took it, and he walked back to his reports like he'd delivered a
supply manifest.
She looked at her name on the outside.
She knew the handwriting. She'd watched those letters form for three years: grocery lists, birthday cards, a note left on her pillow once that she'd kept for two months before she understood it meant nothing.
She folded it in half without opening it and put it in her jacket pocket.
Then she went back to the medical bay foundation, because the eastern anchor still needed two hours of work, and the sun was already climbing.
She opened it at noon.
Not because she was ready. Because avoiding it felt like a choice Derek was making for her, and she was done letting him make her choices.
