“She was brave enough to start again.”

I left my hometown with one suitcase and my mother's silence. She didn't come to the station. I told myself I would be back in a year. I wasn't back for eleven.

Everyone said he was a good man, and he was. I said yes because saying no needed a reason I couldn't name. We lasted four years. The hardest part wasn't leaving. It was admitting I had known on the first day.

A rented room, a job below my last title, a city where nobody knew my story. I was terrified for six months. Then one morning I noticed I had stopped being terrified. That is the whole chapter.