People joke about the heat down there, but it’s the kind of heat that wraps around you, that sinks into your bones and stays.
Florida has its dangers, sure.
Snakes, gators, hurricanes.
But the snakes I’m afraid of aren’t the kind that slither.
They’re the two-legged kind.
When Dan asked me to move with him, I hesitated.
I remember that part clearly—the doubt.
I remember standing in my tiny Jersey apartment, staring at the packed boxes, feeling something tighten in my chest even after I said okay.
He told me he loved me.
Said he wanted a future.
Marriage. A house.
All the things I thought I wanted.
Things most people are supposed to want.
He begged.
And I caved.
I thought love meant compromise.
I thought fairytales came with rough beginnings.
What I got instead was a slow, suffocating nightmare that took me too long to recognize for what it was.
I don’t know what I expect from all this. Only that I need to put as much distance between myself and Dan Mills as possible.
Quietly. Carefully. Without leaving a trail he can follow.
Hence the road trip.
The cash-only transactions.
The burner phone I barely turn on.
I made one mistake.
One little girl’s indulgence.
I stopped to see my mother.
Her little house in Nutley looks exactly the same as it always has—narrow driveway, flowerpots on the stoop, plastic cover on the couch she never uses.
The town I grew up in.
The place I thought would always feel like home.
It turned into a near miss.
