Does love mean I should stay?
Does love mean I should forgive?
Does love cancel what happened?
I looked at the man I had once believed fate placed beside me at Table Fourteen.
“It means something,” I said.
He looked up.
“It just doesn’t mean everything.”
Then I walked away.
For years, I had thought the worst thing Adrian ever gave me was that bruise.
It wasn’t.
The bruise healed.
The worst thing was teaching me to doubt my own right to say no.
Victoria had done it with smiles.
Adrian had done it with money.
Then with anger.
Then with his hand.
The most important thing I ever gave myself was not revenge.
Not the divorce.
Not even the financial victory.
It was believing my own no before anyone else agreed with it.
I learned that a boundary does not become cruel because somebody punishes you for having one.
