Part One:

The dining room was alive with the sounds of silverware scratching across porcelain, chair legs squealing against hardwood floors, and the occasional burst of laughter that seemed just a little too sharp for comfort. The roast chicken had been perfumed with lemon, thyme, and butter, filling the house with that cozy scent that usually reminded me of childhood holidays. Usually.

Not today.

I sat at the far end of the long mahogany table, my glass of Chardonnay barely touched, while everyone else dove into the food like ravenous wolves. My brother Peter occupied the seat closest to my mother, leaning back with that smug grin plastered on his face—the one that had followed him since he was fifteen and discovered he could charm teachers out of bad grades. His wife, Clarissa, perched beside him, jewelry glittering like a chandelier, her manicured nails drumming against her water glass in rhythm with her daughter’s antics.

And then there was the daughter—my niece, Emily. Nine years old, all cheek and confidence, with the kind of arrogance only carefully cultivated by parents who believed their child could do no wrong.

She had my phone in her hands.

My iPhone 17 Pro.

I hadn’t even noticed she’d picked it up until her small voice rang out like a bell, far too loud for the space, commanding the room’s attention.

“Mom says this is a cheap knockoff.”

Her smirk widened as she clutched the phone like it was a plastic toy from a cereal box. The words echoed, bouncing around the dining room, and suddenly every fork and knife stilled. Then the laughter began.

It started with a chuckle from Clarissa—light, brittle, mocking. Then my brother chimed in, his voice sharp as glass.

“Don’t worry, Selene. You can buy another ten, right? That’s what you’re for.”

The table roared with laughter, a tidal wave of derision that crashed over me, suffocating.

I sat frozen, fork suspended halfway between plate and mouth, cheeks heating as though I’d been branded in front of an audience. My stomach twisted, though I forced a small, polite smile—the same one I’d worn for years, the one that said I’ll take the joke, I’ll absorb the sting, just don’t make a bigger scene.

But then Emily, with her childish cruelty sharpened by her mother’s tongue, tilted the phone, squinting at the sleek glass and steel.

“Feels fake,” she declared.

And then, as if the words weren’t enough, as if she needed to prove her own power in the hierarchy of this family, she bent it.

There was a sound—a jagged snap of glass and a metallic groan that tore through the room like a bullet.

I gasped.

It was done in an instant. My iPhone—worth more than their entire week of groceries—was split, the screen fractured into a spiderweb of glowing shards, the body bent at an impossible angle.

For a heartbeat, silence reigned.

Then laughter. Again. Louder this time, swallowing the moment whole.

“Oh my God, it’s just a phone,” Clarissa said, waving her hand dismissively. “Selene, relax. Kids these days.”

My brother leaned back, smirking wider, like he’d just won a round in some invisible game.

I picked up the pieces from the table, the broken halves reflecting the chandelier above like fractured mirrors. My fingers didn’t tremble. That was the detail no one noticed. My hands, my face, my voice—all calm. Eerily calm.

“Enjoy lunch,” I murmured, slipping the ruined phone into my bag like a body into a coffin.

No one heard the steel in my voice. They were too busy chewing, too busy mocking, too busy forgetting that I was not theirs to break.

That night, the house was silent.

I sat at my desk, bills spread across the wood like a battlefield. The lamp’s glow painted shadows across stacks of envelopes marked with my name alone: mortgage, utilities, insurance, tuition.

Tuition.

One folder was labeled in neat handwriting: Emily’s Academy.

Every month, nine hundred dollars bled from my account into theirs. Every month, I told myself it was for her future, for her chance to grow up without limits, for her education.

But as I stared at the broken halves of my iPhone lying on the desk beside me, catching the lamplight like jagged ice, something shifted.

One click. $900 gone. The automatic payment canceled.

Phones snap. Glass shatters. Laughter fades. But silence—silence carries sharper edges.

And tonight, silence belonged to me.

I didn’t sleep. Sleep was mercy, and mercy had no place left in me. I sat by the window, the cool October air pressing against the glass, and let the silence wrap itself around me like an accomplice.

By morning, the phone call came.

“Selene.”

My brother’s voice was tight, rushed, irritated. “The school called. Payment bounced. Some kind of mistake?”

A mistake.

That word hung in the air like perfume after someone leaves the room. He still thought I was the woman who swallowed humiliation and paid on time.

“No mistake,” I said smoothly. “I ended it.”

There was a pause. Then a sharp intake of breath.

“Ended—what the hell are you talking about? That’s her future.”

I thought of his daughter laughing as she bent my phone in her hands. I thought of the roar of the table as they applauded my humiliation.

“Her future,” I said simply, “is in her parents’ hands now. Not mine.”

The slam of the receiver vibrated through me like a drumbeat.

A line had been crossed—one they never believed I had the courage to draw.

And for the first time in years, I didn’t feel like the family’s invisible credit card.

I felt something else.

Sharper. Steadier.

Alive.

By Sunday, the storm had arrived.

Clarissa stormed into my house without knocking, her perfume thick and suffocating, her earrings swinging like pendulums as her words lashed the air.

“You’re sick,” she spat. “She’s a child. You’re ruining her life over a phone.”

I stood in the doorway, calm, arms crossed, the same eerie steadiness humming through me.

“I’m not ruining anything. I’m just giving her what you all taught her—that actions have consequences.”

Her laugh was brittle, sharp. “We’ll find another way. You think you’re the only one with money? You think we need you?”

Her words were knives, but I saw the flicker in her eyes—the fear. Because beneath all the bravado, she knew the truth.

For years, I had been the quiet engine behind their show of wealth. The private school, the designer clothes, the vacations they bragged about—all greased by my silent generosity.

“You’ve mistaken me for your safety net,” I said softly. “That net just snapped.”

She slammed the door so hard a picture frame rattled on the wall.

But in the stillness that followed, I felt it: power, not given, but reclaimed.

For the first time in decades, silence was not weakness. It was strength.

And I had only just begun to wield it.

Part Two:

The first real ripple hit by Wednesday.

A crisp envelope arrived at my brother’s house, stamped with the academy’s elegant crest in gold. Inside, the language was polite but firm: tuition payment overdue, enrollment at risk.

The letter might as well have been a verdict.

By Friday, another call came. This time, Peter’s voice wasn’t just tight—it was panicked.

“Selene, listen. The school gave us a week to sort this out. They’ll expel her if we don’t pay. You can’t do this. You know how hard it is to get into St. Augustine’s. She’ll lose her spot forever.”

I sat at my kitchen table, coffee cooling in front of me, my hand steady on the mug.

“You should’ve thought about that before you laughed while your daughter destroyed what I worked for.”

A sharp hiss of breath on the other end. “Don’t make this about a damn phone.”

“Oh, it’s not about the phone,” I said calmly. “It’s about respect.”

The silence on the line was thick, broken only when he muttered, “You’ll regret this.”

But as I set the phone down, I knew regret was their word, not mine.

By Sunday, the “family lunch” was called again.

They didn’t say it outright, but I knew. It was never about roast chicken and mashed potatoes anymore. It was a tribunal. A gathering to fix the problem named me.

The dining room felt different when I walked in. Heavy. No bright laughter. No smug jokes. Just eyes sharp as daggers tracking me as I set my purse on the chair.

Peter started first, leaning forward with his hands clasped like a lawyer at trial.

“Selene, do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you understand how many doors you’re closing for her? Private school isn’t just about education—it’s about connections, about her future.”

I met his glare with silence. Silence has more weight than shouting.

Clarissa leaned in, her voice dripping with sugary venom.

“You’ve always been dramatic, but this time you’ve gone too far. You embarrassed us in front of the board. Parents talk, you know. Do you want your niece treated like trash now?”

A laugh bubbled in my throat. I didn’t let it out, but my smile was sharp.

“Funny,” I said, my voice low and steady. “You didn’t mind when she treated me like trash at this very table.”

The room stiffened.

They weren’t used to hearing my voice cut like glass.

Finally, my mother spoke, her cardigan draped over her shoulders like armor, her voice carrying that old mix of pleading and authority.

“Selene, sweetheart. She’s just a child. We all overreacted. Be the bigger person. Reinstate the payments and we’ll move on.”

Her words landed like stones in my chest. I’d heard them my entire life. Be the bigger person. Swallow it. Sacrifice yourself so they can thrive.

I lifted my gaze slowly, deliberately.

“No.”

Just one word. But it sliced through the room like a blade.

Emily, sitting at the end of the table with her arms crossed, muttered under her breath, “It’s just school. Mom says we’ll find another.”

Her casual dismissal lit a cold fire in me. Even now, she hadn’t learned. Even now, entitlement dripped from her voice.

I stood, the chair scraping back.

“Then let her find out what ‘another’ really means.”

The silence that followed was the kind that makes people shift in their chairs, the kind that echoes louder than screams.

I left before dessert was served.

Three days later, the final letter arrived.

No more warnings. No more grace period.

Enrollment terminated due to non-payment. Effective immediately.

I didn’t have to be there to see the fallout. Clarissa crumbling on the kitchen floor. Peter slamming his fist against the counter. Emily throwing a tantrum loud enough to rattle windows.

The whispers spread quickly through their pristine social circle. Parents at cocktail parties asking quietly, “Why isn’t Emily at St. Augustine’s anymore?” Colleagues at Peter’s firm whispering, “Did something happen with their finances?”

And Clarissa’s Instagram feed—once a glossy parade of brunches, vacations, and luxury handbags—fell silent.

Reputation had been their currency. And suddenly, they were bankrupt.

That Saturday, my mother showed up at my door.

Her face was tight, lips pressed thin, cardigan buttoned all the way to her chin as though the fabric could hold her together.

“Selene,” she said, voice trembling with both shame and fury. “This is family. Family doesn’t turn its back on blood.”

I gestured for her to sit, but she hovered near the doorway instead, like she might catch something from me.

“Mom,” I said evenly. “I’ve paid nearly fifty thousand dollars for her education over the years. And in return, I was mocked, laughed at, disrespected.”

“She’s a child,” my mother snapped.

“She’s a mirror,” I cut in. “A reflection of the adults around her. Do you really think she learned entitlement in a vacuum?”

Her silence was answer enough.

Meanwhile, at my brother’s house, the reality settled in.

Public school wasn’t just an option. It was the only option.

And when Emily walked into that new building on her first day, her shiny branded shoes replaced with plain sneakers, her designer backpack swapped for something stitched and unremarkable, whispers followed her like shadows.

By lunch, her phone buzzed with texts from old classmates: What happened? Did your family go broke?

Children are wolves. They sense weakness, and they circle.

Emily’s tears weren’t about education. They were about status. About losing the pedestal she’d been handed without earning it.

But there was no pedestal anymore.

And for once, she had to stand on her own two feet.

By the end of that week, desperation set in.

Calls came in layers. My brother. My mother. My aunt. Each one carrying the same hidden script: guilt, guilt, guilt.

“Families fight,” my aunt sighed over the phone. “But you don’t let children pay the price.”

“She paid nothing,” I replied calmly. “And that’s the problem. Everything was handed, nothing was earned.”

But the real ambush came one evening when my mother invited me for tea.

When I stepped inside, the living room was already full.

Peter. Clarissa. Emily, eyes swollen from crying. My mother clutching her rosary like a shield.

“This has to stop,” Peter snapped. “We’re family. Selene, we need you.”

I looked at him, at the family who had treated me like a walking ATM for years, and felt nothing but ice.

“Need me, or need my money?”

Clarissa leaned forward, voice trembling with rehearsed sincerity.

“We’re sorry. She’s sorry. Right, honey?” She nudged her daughter.

Emily muttered through clenched teeth. “Sorry.”

But the word was empty. A balloon without air.

“You don’t get it,” I said quietly. “Apologies mean nothing if entitlement still lives under your skin. This isn’t about a phone anymore. It’s about respect. And you’ve all shown me how little of it you carry.”

My mother’s voice cracked. “Selene, please. I raised you better than this. Don’t let pride destroy us.”

I bent down, kissed her forehead gently, and whispered, “You raised me to sacrifice, not to be sacrificed.”

Then I turned to the rest.

“You taught her actions have no weight. Now she’s learning gravity the hard way.”

The silence was suffocating.

They thought I would fold. They thought guilt and tears would pull me back.

But they didn’t understand.

Once a chain breaks, it doesn’t return to steel. It becomes dust.

And I was already breathing free.

One week later, the whispers had grown into stories.

Cocktail parties buzzed with speculation. Peter’s colleagues raised eyebrows at his sudden lack of confidence. Clarissa’s social circle dissolved into a cold, judgmental distance.

And me?

I sat in my quiet house, phone in pieces tucked into a box in my closet, and felt something I hadn’t in years.

Peace.

They had mocked me for being silent. But now, silence had turned into a blade.

And I was wielding it with precision.

Part Three:

The unraveling came faster than even I expected.

By the second week, desperation wasn’t just a flavor in their voices—it was a full-course meal they were choking on.

Peter called three times in one day. Clarissa left voicemails that oscillated between fury and begging. My mother stopped by so often I started turning off the lights and pretending I wasn’t home.

But reality doesn’t wait for comfort.

St. Augustine’s sent out their finalized admissions list for the spring semester. My niece’s name was absent, erased like chalk on wet pavement.

The academy didn’t allow “temporary withdrawals.” No waiting list, no second chances. Once you lost your spot, it was gone. Permanently.

I found out through my mother first. Her voice cracked over the phone.

“She’s devastated, Selene. She cries herself to sleep. She says the other kids mock her, call her Discount Queen.”

I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply. It wasn’t joy I felt, nor cruelty. It was balance. For once, the scales aligned.

That Sunday, the family gathered again. But there were no roasts, no china, no show of wealth. Just plastic containers of takeout spread across the table like a funeral offering.

Emily sat curled in the corner, her eyes hollow, pride stripped away.

Clarissa wouldn’t meet my gaze, her hands twisting napkins into shreds.

Peter’s voice was quiet this time, almost broken.

“You won,” he said simply.

I set down my fork, met his tired eyes, and replied evenly.

“This was never about winning. It was about ending the cycle. I gave too much. You took too much. And she learned that taking was her right. Now she’s learning something else.”

No one argued.

No one mocked.

For the first time, they finally understood silence the way I had lived it.

But the story wasn’t finished.

The most telling moment came a week later, when I walked out of the grocery store and found Peter waiting by my car.

His tie was loose, his face pale and hollow with exhaustion. For once, my older brother—the man who had always towered over me with bravado and entitlement—looked smaller.

“Selene,” he said, voice rough, stripped of its usual edge. “Please.”

I didn’t move, just unlocked my car door. “Please what?”

He swallowed hard. “I’ll admit it. We were wrong. About everything. About you. About how we treated you. Just… don’t let her suffer like this. She’s falling apart.”

The words should’ve softened me. Once upon a time, they would have. But now?

“You finally feel powerless,” I murmured, studying him in the flickering parking lot light. “Good. Because that’s what you made me feel for years.”

He winced, but didn’t argue. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded check.

“I scraped what I could. Half a month’s tuition. Just… help us with the rest until we catch up.”

The paper fluttered in his trembling hand like a white flag.

I looked at it, then back at him.

“You don’t understand. This isn’t about money. It never was.”

I got into my car, leaving him standing there under the cold glow of the streetlight, the check dangling uselessly in his hand.

Driving away, I realized something.

Revenge wasn’t loud. It wasn’t slamming doors or screaming matches.

It was quiet. Deliberate. Inevitable.

Like winter creeping over autumn.

And for the first time, I felt no trace of doubt.

Because the ending was already written.

The following month cemented everything.

Emily adjusted—if you could call it that. She trudged to public school in uniforms that didn’t sparkle, shoes that didn’t gleam.

Gone were the chauffeured mornings, the whispers of privilege, the carefully curated pedestal.

Now she stood in line for cafeteria food, her tray as ordinary as the rest. Now she rode a bus instead of a black SUV.

And children, cruel in their honesty, smelled blood.

“Did your family go broke?”
“Where’s your rich aunt now?”
“Discount Queen.”

Her posture slumped lower every day, her eyes dimmer.

But here’s the truth: I didn’t take pleasure in it. Not really.

It wasn’t joy I felt watching her stumble—it was something heavier. Something closer to justice.

Because for years, I had been their safety net. Their quiet well of money and patience. Their cushion. Their shield.

And now?

Now they learned what it felt like when the net snapped.

One evening, as autumn gave way to early winter, my mother came again.

Her voice was softer this time, no fury, no commands.

“You were always the strong one,” she whispered, standing in my doorway like a shadow. “Maybe too strong. But don’t let bitterness eat you alive.”

I looked at her, really looked. The lines on her face deeper than I remembered. The cardigan buttoned against a cold that seemed to come from the inside out.

“I’m not bitter,” I said quietly. “I’m free.”

She closed her eyes, as if the word hurt. But she didn’t argue.

Maybe she finally understood.

The last Sunday lunch came in December.

Snow fell outside, quiet and heavy, muffling the world.

The table was stripped down to paper plates and store-bought pie. No laughter. No mocking.

Emily sat in silence, staring at her plate. Her pride had crumbled into dust. Clarissa’s voice was hoarse, her hands still trembling. Peter barely spoke, his jaw tight, his shoulders heavy.

They looked like a family deflated, their armor gone.

And me?

I felt steady. Whole.

For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like the extra chair at their table. I didn’t feel like the wallet in human form.

I felt like someone they could no longer use.

Someone they could no longer break.

When the meal ended, no one asked me for anything. No one mocked. No one demanded.

It was as if, finally, the weight of consequence had settled in their bones.

Later that night, I slid the two broken halves of my iPhone into a small wooden box and tucked it into the back of my closet.

Not as a wound.

But as a monument.

A reminder that some fractures don’t need repairing.

They need remembering.

I turned off the light and whispered to the dark:

“They’ll never use me as their safety net again.”

And for the first time in my life, the word family no longer meant chains.

It meant choice.

Choice to walk away.
Choice to protect myself.
Choice to breathe without asking permission.

The house was quiet.

But the quiet was mine.

Part Four:

The weeks after that December lunch slipped by like water over ice—slow, cold, inevitable.

Winter wrapped itself around the town, and with it, silence wrapped itself around my family. Calls became less frequent. The pleading slowed. Even the guilt trips dried up.

I thought maybe they’d finally accepted it.

But desperation has a way of mutating.

It was late January when Peter showed up again. Not at my door this time, but at my office. He looked out of place in the reception area, his expensive suit wrinkled, his face pale with exhaustion.

“Selene,” he started, as soon as I stepped into the lobby. His voice wasn’t angry, not sharp. Just weary. “We need to talk.”

I gestured toward the conference room, ignoring the curious glances of my coworkers. He followed, his footsteps heavy.

Once the door shut, he spoke fast, like if he didn’t, the words would rot in his throat.

“She’s not doing well. Emily. She comes home crying almost every day. She won’t eat dinner. She stays in her room. She… she blames herself. And maybe she should, but—” His voice broke, something I hadn’t heard since we were children. “She’s just a kid, Selene.”

I leaned back in the chair, my arms folded.

“Just a kid,” I echoed. “Funny how that phrase gets pulled out only when it suits you. She was ‘just a kid’ when she bent my phone in half, too. But she was old enough to know how to smirk at me while she did it. Old enough to mock. Old enough to mirror the contempt she learned at your table.”

Peter flinched, but pressed on.

“Maybe we screwed up. Hell, I know we did. But she’s learning now. Isn’t that enough? Do you have to let her drown to make your point?”

For a moment, something inside me wavered. Not pity, not quite. Something smaller. An echo of the girl I once was—the one who believed family was worth breaking yourself for.

But then I remembered the years of bills stacked on my desk. The vacations I paid for but wasn’t invited to. The endless Sundays of laughter at my expense. The way they turned me into a walking ATM while stripping me of dignity.

And I remembered the snap of glass. The sound of my niece’s laughter. The roar of the table.

I shook my head slowly.

“I’m not the one who taught her to swim in shallow water. You did. And now the tide’s just gone out.”

His jaw tightened. He slid a folded sheet of paper across the table.

“She wrote you a letter. I told her it was pointless, but she wanted to.”

I unfolded it.

The handwriting was messy, the words short.

Aunt Selene,
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your phone. I was just trying to be funny. Mom and Dad laughed so I thought it was okay. Please don’t hate me. Please don’t hate us. I miss my school. I miss my friends. Please help me.
Love, Emily.

The words should’ve pierced me.

But instead, I noticed what wasn’t there.

Not once did she say she was sorry for mocking me. Not once did she acknowledge the way she’d treated me as less. Not once did she see beyond the phone.

Her apology wasn’t about me. It was about her comfort.

I folded the letter carefully and slid it back across the table.

“Tell her I read it.”

Peter’s face fell. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

His hands curled into fists on the table. “You think this makes you strong? You think letting a child suffer makes you powerful?”

I met his glare with steady calm. “No. Walking away from the people who bled me dry makes me powerful. Teaching your daughter that actions have weight—that’s mercy. She’ll understand one day. Maybe you will, too.”

He stood abruptly, the chair scraping. For a second, I thought he might explode, shout, curse, rage like the old Peter would have.

But he didn’t.

He just looked tired. Defeated. Smaller than I’d ever seen him.

And he walked out.

By February, the family had fractured into silence.

Clarissa stopped calling altogether. Her Instagram remained barren, her curated life crumbling in the shadows.

Peter worked longer hours, his shoulders hunched under the whispers at the firm.

My mother still called sometimes, her voice worn thin, but even she seemed to know the tide had shifted for good.

And Emily?

I heard about her through the grapevine. A neighbor’s daughter went to the same public school. She said Emily kept to herself now, her old arrogance cracked and crumbled. Kids teased her sometimes, but she no longer snapped back. She just lowered her head and kept walking.

It wasn’t revenge I felt hearing that.

It was something colder. Something cleaner.

Balance.

March came with its thaw, and with it, a strange peace.

I spent more Sundays alone, reading by the window, sipping coffee without the weight of family mockery pressing down on my shoulders.

The quiet no longer felt heavy.

It felt earned.

One Sunday, I drove past my brother’s house. Not intentionally, just a shortcut home from the grocery store. The lawn wasn’t manicured anymore. The fancy car in the driveway had been replaced with something older, cheaper.

Through the window, I saw Emily at the kitchen table, hunched over a workbook. Her hair was pulled back, her shoulders slumped, no designer labels in sight.

For the first time, she looked like a normal kid.

And strangely, I felt lighter.

Maybe she was learning.

Maybe this would carve something real into her character.

Or maybe it would harden her into something crueler.

That wasn’t my responsibility anymore.

I pressed the gas and drove on.

By April, the phone in my closet—the fractured iPhone 17 Pro—felt less like a wound and more like a monument.

Every now and then, I’d open the box, look at the jagged glass catching the light, and remind myself:

This was the moment the chain broke.

This was the moment I stopped being their safety net.

This was the moment I chose myself.

And every time, I’d close the box with steady hands, knowing I’d never go back.

The final confrontation came not with fury, but with quiet.

Mother invited me over for tea again in late spring. This time, the house was empty except for her. No ambush. No tribunal. Just the two of us.

She poured tea into delicate porcelain cups, her hands shaking slightly.

“You’ve changed,” she said softly, watching the steam rise. “Part of me is proud. Part of me is afraid. I don’t know if you’ll ever forgive us.”

I sipped my tea, letting the warmth settle into me.

“Forgiveness isn’t the point anymore. The point is I finally learned I don’t have to bleed to keep everyone else comfortable.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Family should mean more than this.”

I met her gaze steadily. “Family should mean respect. And if it doesn’t, then family is just another chain.”

She didn’t argue.

For once, she didn’t try to guilt or scold or plead.

She just nodded slowly, as if she finally understood.

That summer, Emily walked across her middle school stage for the eighth-grade ceremony.

Not at St. Augustine’s. Not in a pristine white dress or polished leather shoes.

Just in a plain gown, the same as every other student.

I didn’t attend. I heard about it later. How she looked quiet, subdued, older somehow.

Maybe she’d grown. Maybe not.

But either way, she’d learned something she never would have at that expensive academy.

That nothing is guaranteed. That money doesn’t erase consequence. That even safety nets snap.

And maybe, someday, she’d thank me for that lesson.

But I didn’t need her thanks.

Because the freedom was mine.

That night, as fireflies danced outside my window, I sat at my desk and wrote a note.

Not to them. To myself.

You chose yourself. You broke the chain. You are not their wallet, not their cushion, not their fool. You are Selene. And you are free.

I folded it, slid it into the same box as the broken phone, and tucked it away.

The box wasn’t just a monument anymore.

It was a promise.

The next Sunday, I didn’t go to lunch. I didn’t answer the phone.

I sat in my quiet house, the hum of the fridge and the soft rustle of the trees outside my only company.

And for the first time in my life, the quiet wasn’t something forced on me.

It was something I chose.

The quiet was mine.

And so was my life.

THE END