The day I finally spoke the truth, everything began to change.
Michael had once told me that I would never be happy without him.
He was wrong.
I didn’t know what my future would look like. I didn’t know whether I would ever become a mother, fall in love again, or build a different kind of family.
But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
I would never again sit beside someone who frightened me, hold his hands, and repeat that tomorrow would be better just to keep the peace.
I had spent eighteen years waiting for permission to live my own life.
At thirty-eight, I finally gave myself that permission.
And for the first time, the future belonged to me.
