I kept my voice gentle.
“You got scared in one day. The rest happened slowly.”
She cried into my shoulder.
After a while, she said, “I thought you’d say, ‘I told you so.'”
“What do you need tonight?”
“I didn’t tell you so.”
“You wanted to.”
“Maybe for five seconds.”
She laughed through her tears.
Then I asked, “What do you need tonight?”
That changed something.
“I don’t want to go back.”
Not everything.
But something.
She said, “I don’t want him to know where I am.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to go back.”
“Okay.”
The next morning, Tina contacted a lawyer.
“I don’t know what to do next.”
“We can figure out tomorrow tomorrow.”
That night, we turned off location sharing, changed passwords, and called Mom.
The next morning, Tina contacted a lawyer.
Eric kept calling.
She didn’t answer.
“I need you to stop letting your sister think for you.”
His messages bounced between apology and blame.
Then one said marriage required sacrifice.
Tina saved everything.
Three days later, he sent a voice message.
“I’m not angry,” he said. “I need you to stop letting your sister think for you. This is exactly what happened in my last relationship, and she left me in the dust.”
