The dinner continued.
But the silence never went away.
It sat between Lydia and Ivan like a wall.
Neither of them tried to break it.
Lydia continued eating.
She barely even knew what she was eating anymore.
She wasn't hungry.
She wasn't enjoying the food.
She was only moving her fork from one side of the plate to the other because she needed something to do with her hands.
Maybe if she kept eating, she would stop thinking.
Maybe if she focused on the food, she would stop thinking about Ivan.
But it wasn't working.
The more she tried to force herself to hate him, the more tired she became.
Across the table, Ivan remained quiet.
He didn't touch much of his food either.
His eyes occasionally moved toward Lydia.
He wanted to speak.
But after everything that had happened, he didn't know what he could possibly say.
So he stayed silent.
The servants were suffering through the silence with them.
No one dared to speak.
No one dared to make unnecessary noise.
