Build a simple website
Photograph portfolio pieces (not the Cord sketches. Keep those)
Create new work
Start small. Be brave.
Outside my window, The Ranch continued its familiar rhythm. Pleasure and release, people finding what they needed in connection and touch and temporary escape.
I'd been part of that world for seven years. It had been good to me, taught me things about bodies and connection and presence that I'd carry forever.
But it was time to leave.
Somewhere out there, Cord was preparing for surgery. Moving forward with his life, making decisions about his future. We'd had a week together, and they'd changed me in ways I was still discovering.
I looked at the sketch of him sleeping one more time, morning light soft on his face, completely unguarded. Beautiful in his vulnerability.
Maybe that's what I needed to learn. How to be beautiful in my own vulnerability. How to put my work out there and risk rejection. How to stop hiding behind noble dreams and start with the scary, honest truth of my own voice.
I closed the portfolio and started sketching something new. Not Cord this time, though I could feel his influence in every line. Just what I saw, what I felt, what was true.
The pencil moved across the paper, and for the first time in years, I wasn't thinking about what would sell or what people wanted to see.
I was just creating.
Tomorrow I'd start figuring out the logistics—where to go, how to make it work, what came next. Tomorrow I'd tell Ramon and start packing up seven years of life.
But tonight, I just drew.
Outside, The Ranch settled into darkness. Inside my studio, I worked under the warm glow of the lamp near the windows, finally brave enough to put myself first.
It was terrifying.
It was exactly what I needed to do.
Chapter Sixteen
Cord
The anesthesia wore off in stages. First came the pain—deep, grinding ache in my shoulder like someone had taken a blowtorch to the joint. Then awareness: hospital room, steady beep of monitors, antiseptic smell that made my stomach turn.
Finally, clarity:I'd done it.
