I know what forgiveness will cost me.
Not words.
Not patience.
Not waiting.
I will dismantle the system that taught me silence was loyalty.
I will put my hands around the throat of the man who thought he could shape her life and walk away clean.
I will earn her forgiveness the only way that matters.
And when I stand in front of her again, I won’t ask.
I’ll show her.
BOND OVER ICE CREAM
Make Me (Cry) - Noah Cyrus feat. Labrinth
Kookaburra
Iwake before anyone else. Not startled. Not afraid. Just alert in the way you get when the decision has already been made somewhere deeper than thought.
Last night was perfect.
Everything I needed and more.
The perfect goodbye.
The room is dark, early-morning grey leaking around the edges of the curtains. Bodies breathe around me – slow, uneven, unaware. A soft snore. A shift of fabric. The ordinary sounds of people who still believe there’s time.
There isn’t.
I slide carefully out of bed, easing my weight away so the mattress doesn’t dip. Bones doesn’t stir. His arm stays heavy onthe sheets where it fell sometime in the night after I returned to him, warm and real and grounding in a way that makes my chest tighten for exactly one second.
I don’t touch him.
If I do, I won’t leave.
I don’t know if it was my absence, the pregnancy, or getting me back that changed him, that changed all of them, but I miss my monsters.
I gather my clothes quietly – jeans, hoodie, boots – everything practical, everything chosen because it doesn’t require thought. The bathroom door clicks shut behind me, the sound soft but final.
The mirror shows me a face stripped bare. No softness. No performance. Just resolve set into bone.
Good.
I brush my teeth. Tie my hair back. Wash my face, hands and wrists, letting the heat bite just enough to keep me anchored. My jeans feel tight. I blame the parasite.
The bathroom hums faintly with pipes and electricity, a closed space where I can breathe without being watched.
That’s when I see it.
The burner sits on the counter, half-hidden beneath a folded towel like it was never meant to be obvious. Bones’ phone.
I stare at it for a moment longer than necessary, then pick it up. The screen lights instantly. No lock. Of course not.
