The Weight of Silence

I smiled faintly.

“She’d definitely yell at me.”

“‘Hayes!’” he said, doing a surprisingly accurate impression of Aria. “‘Why do you smell like you’ve been fighting raccoons in a dumpster?’”

I couldn’t help it.

I laughed.

An actual laugh.

He smiled when he heard it.

“There she is.”

I frowned.

“Who?”

“The Aria I know.”

He folded his arms.

“She always said you laughed the hardest at the d