no photographs of Grant.
No corporate awards from Meridian.
No wedding ring hidden in a drawer.
I poured a glass of water and watched rain move across the streetlights.
Somewhere, Meridian continued without me.
Somewhere, Grant lived knowing that the woman he tried to replace had never been the burden holding him back.
She had been the structure holding everything up.
But that truth no longer mattered because I had finally built something that did not require my suffering to survive.
The next morning, Northline’s ethics committee rejected one of
