He messaged me a month later. “I hope you’re well. I have a new mentor. This one is different. Not like Lana and her lies. There’s a real opportunity this time.”
I didn’t respond. I blocked the number.
Now, the guest room is mine. I repainted it sage green. Bought a secondhand bookshelf. I filled it with poetry, old paperbacks, overpriced candles that I light just for myself. I even found a small wind chime at a flea market, the kind that sings with the breeze. The walls don’t hold secrets anymore. I snore. Sometimes loudly. But no one moves away from me in the night. No one pretends I’m the problem while dismantling my peace behind a locked door.
Last week, at the bookstore, a man asked if the collection I was holding was worth reading. We ended up talking for thirty minutes. We spoke about literature, about life, about finding your feet again. There was no flirting. No pressure. Just presence.
After he left, I stood in the poetry aisle a little longer, holding that book like it might save me. Maybe it did.
Because for the first time in a long time, I felt something bloom in the quiet. Not hope. Not love. Not even closure. Just peace.
I sleep alone now. Door open. Phone unplugged. Dreams unburdened.
