He kissed my cheek, told me to “text if anything serious happened,” and walked out the door with his suitcase while I stood in the hallway holding a feverish toddler. Something inside me broke. While Gregory spent the next few days posting photos of cocktails by the pool and sunsets captioned Finally relaxing, I lived in survival mode.
I slept in short bursts between medication schedules. I cleaned, cooked, comforted, and worried. I canceled work shifts and rearranged everything without complaint.
But beneath the exhaustion, something else was growing. Resolve. Gregory had underestimated me.
He had forgotten that while I was gentle, I was not powerless. I managed the household finances. I handled subscriptions, passwords, schedules—everything he never bothered to learn.
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