Page 173 of Josephine and Clay

I can walk.

Not well, and definitely not without pain shooting through my leg every few steps, but I can still move under my own power.

Right now, that feels like enough.

I zip the duffel halfway, then stop.

The envelope sits on the dresser.

Dad’s handwriting is still there.

I should’ve burned the damn thing. I should’ve shoved it back where I found it and pretended I never saw it. Instead, I’ve carried it around in my head for weeks, letting it rot into every thought until it tastes of proof.

I push to my feet, careful with my weight. Pain bites up my leg, but I barely react anymore. It’s become part of the weather. There in the morning. There at night. There every time I move wrong or sit too long or forget for half a second that my body isn’t doing what I tell it to.

I cross to the dresser and pick up the envelope.

The paper feels soft from handling.

Stupid, how much damage paper can do.

I slide the documents out one more time, and swallow the bitterness crawling up my throat before I shove the papers back inside.

Then I grab a notepad from the drawer.

The pen doesn’t work at first.

Of course it doesn’t.

I scribble hard in the corner until ink bleeds through, then sit at the little desk near the window, the same desk I used when I was a kid pretending homework mattered more than climbing out after dark.

The house creaks around me.

Somewhere down the hall, a floorboard settles.

I freeze.

Listen.

Nothing.

No footsteps come down the hall.

No Boone knocking with that patience I can’t stand, or Dallas leaning in the doorway seeing too much before I’ve said a word. No Nash barging in with a joke that lands too close to truth, or Mom watching me with those quiet eyes that somehow always know when I’m slipping.

The house stays silent.

Better this way.

Goodbyes turn people soft, and soft turns into staying. And staying is the one thing I can’t survive.

I press the pen to the paper.

Mom,

The word sits there by itself, looking too small for everything I need to say.

I drag a hand over my jaw.