Chapter 4: The Clean Slate
Emma looked away from me, toward the blank wall across the corridor.
“Because I didn’t want to burden you.”
The word burden made something sharp twist behind my ribs.
“Don’t say that.”
She gave a small, exhausted laugh.
“Nathan, you left because you couldn’t breathe in our marriage anymore. You said we had become a house full of grief.”
I closed my eyes.
I remembered saying that.
I remembered standing in our bedroom with a suitcase open on the bed, trying to sound gentle while I carved her life in half.
We had lost three pregnancies.
Three tiny futures.
Three names we never got to use.
After the last one, Emma still reached for me in the dark.
I stopped reaching back.
Not because I didn’t love her.
Because her pain reminded me of my own, and I was too cowardly to sit inside it with her.
So I called leaving survival.
And she believed me. Continue Reading ⬇️