The word that should come with a warning label.
I typed: You are not a bill. You are not a project. You’re a person. And if someone makes you feel like love has to be earned, that’s not strength. That’s cruelty dressed up in old language.Gift baskets
A minute went by.
Then: Can you really stay?
I looked at my empty kitchen. The mug I used to slam down. The chair Leo used to sit in, like he was trying to take up less space than he deserved.
I wrote: I’m here.
And I stayed.
For forty-seven minutes, we wrote back and forth. Short lines. Breaths. A name. A sister’s number. A promise to walk inside and knock on her door.
When he finally wrote, I’m going upstairs, my whole body sagged like I’d been holding up a wall.
I sat there in the dark and realized something that made me sick and grateful at the same time:
