Chapter Three is seventy-four words.
I've written longer emails. Longer grocery lists. Longer complaints about the weather.
Seventy-four words.
I wrote it in one sitting. Not the polished version—that came later—but the shape of it. The bones. Two people, a conversation that's been waiting fifteen years to happen.
When I finished, I read it back. Then read it again.
It felt complete.
Complete. Like a held breath that didn't need to become a sigh. Like the moment before something breaks, frozen there.
There's a conversation in this chapter. A truth that's been carried for years finally spoken aloud. That's all I'll say about the content.
What I can tell you is the shape of it. Short sentences. Fragments. The kind of speech that happens when words cost too much to spend carelessly.
No scene-setting beyond what's essential. No internal monologue explaining what anyone feels. You don't need me to tell you. You know. You've been in rooms like this—or you can imagine them. The silence that has its own sound. The way time changes weight.
I kept waiting to add more. Surely it needed more. Context, backstory, emotional scaffolding. The things you're supposed to include.
But every time I tried, the addition felt wrong. Like explaining a joke. Like turning on lights in a room that was meant to be dim.
The chapter knew what it was. I just had to trust it.
Seventy-four words. And from there, the rest of the story had somewhere to build from. A foundation that was small but load-bearing.
Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes that's everything.