Jace stared. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nope. Start with the TV.”
His friend laughed. “Damn, Briar, intense.”
“I’m accurate,” I said.
Jace didn’t like that I wasn’t crying.
He liked it even less when I said, loud enough for the hallway:
“You’re not taking the laptop. I bought that before you moved in.”
A neighbor peeked out.
Jace flushed.
Good.
I worked nights at a clinic. Studied whenever I could. Finished my course without Jace’s money.
Sometimes Murray’s driver helped me make it from work to class when time was tight.
Murray never made it weird.
He just made space.
Two months later, I passed my final assessment.
I walked out shaking—not from fear, but from relief.
I called my friend first.
Then Murray.
“I passed,” I said, my voice cracking.
He paused. “Of course you did.”
That night, I returned to the apartment for the last of my things.
In the lobby, I ran into Jace.
He looked at me like he expected me to still be broken.
“So… you’re doing okay.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”
He frowned. “Hmm. I guess you never really needed me. Maybe you were just using me.”
He meant it as a jab.
“I needed support,” I said. “You offered it. Then you pulled it. But I never asked for any of it. You offered.”
He opened his mouth.
I raised my hand. “Don’t.”
He stopped.
I walked past him and stepped out into the cold.
But this time, it didn’t feel like punishment.
The air still carried winter—but I could feel it shifting.
Spring was coming.
And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t waiting for someone else to decide my life.
I had taken hold of it myself.
And I was proud of that.
