18 Chapter 18: HINDSIGHT: NOAH

Watching Maggie leave the plane hit me harder than I expected. Obviously, I was devastated her sister had died while working for me, but at the time I went to see her I had never expected to connect with someone in the way I had with her.

The way I opened my heart to her about Andrea was a first. There was just this... connection, a feeling so familiar I somehow knew I could say what I felt, and she wouldn't judge me. And she hadn't. Instead of being the listening ear I'd intended to provide her with I found myself pouring my own troubles out. Everything I'd been bottling up for years came tumbling out like it would have choked me if I hadn't gotten it off my chest.

Maybe it was my way of empathizing with her hurt. Perhaps I thought she'd be too busy with her own grief to absorb much of what I said, or maybe... it was just time I let it out.