When he tried to ask if we could repair our marriage in the parking lot, I told him that love without respect is just unpaid labor.
I washed my mother’s strawberry apron by hand and cried when the water finally ran clear, realizing that the betrayal was what had truly broken me.
I moved into a new home with Hudson and his wife, Sienna, where the rooms are filled with light and the sound of laughter.
I am no longer the woman who makes herself smaller to keep a false peace, and I have learned that some things deserve to be demolished so that better things can grow.
Nobody gets to tell me where I belong anymore because I have finally built a life that is sturdy enough to hold my own dignity.
THE END.
