A summary for those who needed to skip the last chapter: George grows closer to Dominic and Ivory is wondering if she should publish her book. George is spending less time at home due to pressure from Dominic and Ivory is worried.

The kind of silence Ivory was used to wasn't really silence at all. It was quiet.

It was a satisfied kind of quiet, punctured by the tapping of keyboards and the scratching of pencil on paper. It was bubbling with the sound of the coffee machine and the creaking of floor boards. It was filled every so often by a giggle or George singing a songs she couldn't quite remember the name of from somewhere across the apartment.

This wasn't quiet, it was silence.

It hung in the air, heavy and constantly present. It filled Ivory's lungs whenever she took a breath, and she was sure it was slowly killing her.

George stopped making coffee. Then he stopped eating. Then going to work. Then talking.

That was when he was home. At least she could still hear him breathing when he was there.

She thought he was with Dominic when he was gone, but if he was with him he'd be happy, right? They were in love.

They were in love.

She tiptoed into George's small room to find him asleep in his wheelchair. There was a purple bruise on his cheekbone and an angry red cut on his lip. There were dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks were sunken and hollow. He looked more like a painting than a person.

She lifted him out of his wheelchair and set him in his bed gently. He woke up anyway. He wouldn't meet Ivory's eyes even when she sat down on the edge of the mattress and eventually lay down next to him, her arms resting across her stomach, her eyes looking for patterns on the ceiling.

The silence seemed to release it's grip on her lungs for a second.

"George," she said, not as a question, or to get his attention but as a statement. To remind her that he was still alive and that he was right next to her. Her voice cracked and echoed in the silence

"Ivory," he replied in the same way. His voice was scratchy and quiet. A whisper.

"Ivory and George," she thought. "George and Ivory."

It seemed all the tears she'd been holding back in the past few weeks slipped out of her eyes silently and stealthily.

"George?" She whispered, as a question now.

"Yes?" He replied.

"Do you miss being able to walk?"

He laughed a weak laugh at the familiarity of the conversation. Ivory turned her head to drink in the look of him smiling, because she knew how rare it was now. "Sometimes."

"Was your mom sad?"

"At first, but she was happy I was alive."

"And your dad?"

"Same thing."

The smiles lingered on their faces for a while.

"Where are you?"

"What?"

"Where are you when you're not here?"

He tensed up. "With Dominic."

There was a pause.

"Do you love him?"

"...yes." Ivory couldn't be sure if George was lying or not.

There was silence, again. A kinder silence painted with the color of long overdue smiles. Then George's phone buzzed.

"Oh no," George said, looking at it.

"Who is it?" Ivory asked, propping herself up on one elbow.

"Dominic." He said while hurriedly replying to the message Ivory couldn't see.

"I thought he didn't have a phone."

"He didn't." He said looking up as he pressed send. "But he does now. I need to go."

Ivory pouted. Genuinely. "Now?"

"Yes, now. Help me get to my wheelchair."

She reluctantly lifted him up and set him down in his wheelchair. She noticed how his eyes flashed with fear.

"Do you want me to take you there?"

"No!" He coughed. "I mean no, it's ok."

"Ok."

And she watched as he went down the street towards the bus stop, and the apartment in Georgetown was yanked back into silence.