“For what it’s worth,” she said, meeting my gaze, “I don’t think you’re heartless.”
“What do you think I am?” I asked. She smiled sadly. “I think you were just the first one to escape,” she said.
Something in my chest unclenched. She hugged me at the door when she left, her voice muffled in my shoulder. “You were never the problem, Riley,” she whispered.
“You were just the first one who refused to be broken on purpose.”
After she left, I stood in the quiet, the faint smell of blown-out candles lingering in the air. I thought about my mom still posting cryptic status updates online. It’s always the ones you love most who hurt you the deepest.
I thought about my dad still playing the victim in family circles. You know how kids are these days. Their voices don’t echo in me anymore.
I built walls out of self-respect. Inside those walls, I hung photos with friends who show up when I’m sick with soup instead of invoices. I planted herbs in little pots on the windowsill.
I made a calendar full of things I chose instead of things I owed. I stopped chasing blood ties and started choosing soul ties. The kind that don’t demand your pieces as payment.
The kind that don’t drain you to feel full. The kind that call not because they need a bailout, but because they see you. My parents can tell whatever story they want now.
They can call me heartless, ungrateful, selfish. They can paint themselves as the victims in a tale where their only crime was loving me “too much.”
I don’t care. Because I’m not theirs to ruin anymore.
I’m mine. Fully. Finally.
Freely.
