There were a few times over the last six months that my phone rang from a number I didn’t know. For the first time in my life, I let it go to voicemail.

I was at peace with my decision to have no contact with my mom. I felt free in a way. I no longer worried where she was, or if she was okay. She wasn’t my burden anymore and I hadn’t even realized how heavy she’d been for me to carry because I’d done it for so long. I finally set her down. And that started with me forgiving her.

I chose to believe that she didn’t want to be the villain in my life—even if she was. I didn’t lose my beautiful empathy, as Maddy called it once. I still believed what I always had, that people are complex and nothing is black and white. I believed that now more than ever.

I knew from talking to my cousins and my aunts and my brother that Amber had shown warning signs of who she would become since she was a teenager. Manic and depressive episodes, acting out, drinking at thirteen, probably to self-medicate whatever she was dealing with. Maybe they hadn’t known how to help her. No internet back then, and therapy was stigmatized. Maybe in this little town with no mental health services, they legitimately couldn’t help her. Her mental state made her vulnerable. More prone to risky behavior and trauma inflicted because of it.

Cracks.

A baby at fifteen that she had to give up.

Cracks.

Tumultuous relationships with her parents and siblings—cracks. One leading to the next and she never learned to fill them. She just tried to outrun them, and Maddy was right. You can’t outrun yourself.

Being here, I understood her now, probably better than I ever had. And at the end, I just felt sorry for her.

Alexis was still at the computer when I grabbed my jacket. “You’re cutting out early, right?” Alexis said, looking at her watch.

“Yeah,” I said, putting on my coat. “I have an appointment. I’ll see you at home later.”

“Drive safe.”

I zipped up my jacket and walked out to my car in the blustery March air. I didn’t tell anyone where I was going today. Not even Maddy.

I was going to see Justin—and he didn’t know that either.

I had a voicemail from him. He’d left it the day before we broke up.

“Hey, where are you? Why’d you leave? Call me.”

I played it a lot just to hear his voice.

I wondered for a long time if he still wanted to know where I was. I wondered if he still wanted me to call. Because I wanted to.

I’d wanted to pick up the phone so many times. I missed him so much. But I didn’t feel ready and I didn’t want to give him false hope that I ever would be, or keep him from moving on. I had been small, dealing with everything that had happened and all the emotional fallout and trying to focus on my mental health and getting to know my family.

But I wasn’t small anymore.

I told myself that if I could do the work, make strides in therapy, stay here for six months, be still in one place for the first time in my adult life, that I’d be ready enough to reach out to him and see if there was anything left of us—and I did it. Today was the six-month anniversary of my coming to Wakan. I’d been watching the date approach for weeks and it was finally here.

I timed the drive to his house so I’d get there while the kids were in school, after his stand-up meeting and with a few hours until anyone came home—assuming he’d want me to stay that long. I was going to meet him where he was for once. And I was terrified.

Nobody in this world still possessed the ability to break me like Justin did. Justin looking me in the eye and telling me he didn’t love me anymore or didn’t think I was someone he wanted around his family would destroy me. It would be worse than Mom. It was taking everything in me to be that brave and that vulnerable just to show up.

I didn’t know where he was with his life. Maybe he’d moved on.

I never saw anything in Sarah’s Snap stories that made me think he had a girlfriend—at least nobody serious enough to bring around the kids. But he might be dating. That was a very real possibility. Someone else’s fingers tangled in his thick hair. Him laughing with his head on their pillow.

Forehead kisses.

This was somehow the worst image of all, him pressing his lips to someone else’s head.

But even if that was the news I’d get when I got there, it was still worth trying, because I wanted to go home.

Grant House was where I lived, but it wasn’t home. Justin was home. The kids were home.

Justin was right. Home wasn’t a place, it was a person. For me it was a whole family.

I wanted to hold Chelsea. I wanted to help Sarah and Alex grow up. I wanted to wake up next to Justin and plant things in his yard, stay in one place and let things take root. Make traditions. Have birthdays and Christmases with these people, even though they weren’t mine. I was strong enough for that now, if he’d let me. For the first time in my life, I was capable of love—and the loss that came with it. I could handle it now. I’d healed enough for it.

So I got in my car and I started the journey back to him.

Toilet King billboards peppered the whole drive to his house like highway markers, letting me know I was headed in the right direction. I was less than half an hour away when out of nowhere, like I’d somehow gotten a signal on my phone that I hadn’t gotten in the past six months, Sarah called.

I stared at the caller ID for a solid ten seconds before I hit the answer button. “Sarah?”

“Can you come get me?”

I wrinkled my forehead. “Come get you? From where?”

“School.”

“Are you sick? Where’s Justin?”

“I don’t want him. The nurse says you’re still on the emergency contact list, you can come pick me up, they’ll let me go with you. Just come.”

“You’re going to need to give me a little more information than this,” I said.

“I got my period, okay?”

Ahhhhhh…

“I’m not telling my brother to help me get pads. And I’m not calling Leigh. She’ll throw me a period party. I’d rather die.”

I laughed a little. Yes, Leigh would definitely do that.

I was close. I could be there in twenty minutes. But then the nervousness sank in.

For some reason seeing Sarah felt as hard as seeing Justin.

Harder.

I didn’t just break up with Justin when I left. I broke up with all of them.

Alex would forgive me. He went with the flow and he’d probably be fine with whatever Justin decided. Chelsea was too small to know or hold a grudge. But Sarah… she would tell me exactly what she thought of me for leaving, and she wouldn’t sugarcoat it. She probably wouldn’t sugarcoat what Justin had been up to over the last six months either. Especially if it involved someone else. Just because she called me for help didn’t mean Sarah wanted me back in their lives. She didn’t forgive easily. She was hard on people and she didn’t forget. It would be a tough conversation and I didn’t have the bandwidth for it.

It took everything I had just to come and see him.