I listened to the CD in one sitting. I didn’t move. I didn’t think. I just sat there and let it all pour over me like the fountain of heartache it was.
And when it ended, I lay there in silence, exhausted, like the weight my heart had been dragging for years had finally caught up to me.
The music was gone, but its echo lingered in my bones like an aching, gnawing torment I couldn’t escape—and in that stillness, I succumbed to it.
I made no excuses.
I made no attempt to escape.
I lied to Jake. I lied to E. I lied to myself.
After all the years of back and forth, I was done. Spent. Exasperated. I’d exhausted every avenue, and nothing had set my heart free. Nothing gave me peace.
Being with Jake brought me pain for what it did to E. Being with E brought me pain for my disloyalty to Jake. It all brought me turmoil, for where my love was too much, and where it’d never be enough. And now, no matter what I did, no matter who I chose, someone would be heartbroken—more than they already were, and that felt the most unfair.
My heart didn’t want to deal with any of it. My head told me to run away. But my soul was tired of lying, tired of hiding. It told me it was time to end the madness I had single-handedly created.
I prayed a heartfelt prayer that night, out of nothing but pure weakness—pure surrender. I begged God to tell me what to do. To guide me out of the mess I had made of everything—of love, of loyalty, of myself.
Tears soaked the floor as I whispered every regret, every selfish choice, every battered bruise I’d left on hearts that didn’t deserve it—and begged for forgiveness.
I’d love to tell you some whimsical story of a grand, audible voice that came, a light that shone from the heavens and beamed down on me—but it didn’t.
There was nothing. There was seemingly no one. In the emptiness that followed my desperate plea, there was no voice, no sign—only the hollow echo of everything I’d lost at my own hand.
But somehow, in that silence, I knew.
The answer wasn’t in choosing one or the other.
It was in choosing me. It was choosing to be the person I was made to be.
The girl I used to be before love had ruined me, and made me a liar.
The girl I used to be before love made me selfish and cruel.
The girl I was before my moral compass was completely destroyed.
The girl I hoped to become again—if grace would still have her.
And He would.
I woke up the next morning with a confidence I couldn’t explain and a peace that had no business being mine. But I ran with it.
Over the next two days, I made my arrangements, packed a bag, and got on the flight out.
After all the years, after all the torture, I’d finally had enough.
And for the first time in my life, I knew exactly what to do about it.
Track 19
“Interlude”
-Earth, Wind & Fire, 1992
I’M HERE,Itexted with steady hands and a shaking core as I waited for the buzzer to ring.
Okay, was all he replied.
