Chapter 158: A Father's Quiet Pride
October 26th, 2010
The house was quiet, the kind of quiet that only came when his dad, his brother, and his sister were out at work and school.
Dev stepped into the living room and let the silence settle around him like a blanket. For the first time in what felt like days, his shoulders dropped.
The frantic energy of the last 24 hours had finally started to ebb. No cameras, no questions, no buzz in his phone.
Just stillness.
And in that stillness, a strange sense of calm washed over him.
Not joy exactly more like relief, like stepping out of a storm into shelter.
The press conference had taken something out of him, but it had also given something back.
Saying it out loud really saying it had cracked something open.
Something that needed air.
Now, he just wanted to be here at home.
In this familiar quiet place.
Before the next wave of chaos inevitably crashed in.
