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Not retire.

Not quit my damn job.

Not go buy a Range Rover and start acting stupid.

But breathe.

I paid off what needed to be paid.

Put money away for all four kids.

Opened separate accounts I didn’t touch.

And started seriously looking into buying us a house.

This townhouse was temporary.

A nice temporary.

But temporary.

I wanted something that belonged to us.

The old apartment didn’t anymore.

Too much had happened there.

Xay was in every fucking corner..

The bedroom where I’d spent years lying beside a man wondering why I didn’t feel wanted anymore.

That front door he’d come through drunk.

The same place he’d stood when he grabbed my wrist because he couldn’t accept that I was done.

I couldn’t raise my kids inside a graveyard of our marriage.

So I moved.

Not far.

I wasn’t uprooting everybody’s entire life because mine had blown the fuck up.

The kids could still see their grandparents.

I could still get to work without crossing three states and a river.

Nesha could still pop up uninvited.

As evidenced by her currently eating my fucking grapes.

“Those are for the kids.”

She popped another one into her mouth.

“I am somebody’s child.”

“Not mine.”