Her Choice, My Freedom

h. Mark's fists felt like concrete blocks hitting my ribs, one after another, and with eve

apped around a small boy, her son. Not my son. She watched me die, her beautiful face bl

"save" her, of me sacrificing my own future to pull her out of the messes sh

l blow, more painful than

, no

one starte

ood bedroom, the posters on the wall faded by years of sunlight. My body didn't ache. My ribs weren't

, sitting on my nightstand. The caller I

h' s

t into trouble with Mark at a bar fight. The night her parents called me, beggin

d "rescued" her. She resented me for it for the next twenty years, cla

ging, a siren song

ked i

a misunderstanding with that boy, Mark. The police have her. They said she needs bail

remembered, full of panic

said, "Of cours

took a stea

N

. I could hear her s

u mean, no? This is Sar

a strange sense of power in the simple word. "She made her choice

ed, her voice cracking. "Yo

I was carrying for two decades lifted from my should

nd stared at my hands. They weren't broken. They were the hands of an eightee

anging on my front door. I knew who it w

re to see you. She

ding in the entryway. Her face was red, her eyes puffy from

that my parents were right there in the li

n me and Sarah,

er at my chest. "Sarah is locked up! She called me crying! She's terrified! And all

asked, my voice devoid of the em

ys pretend to be! You have the money saved for college, don't y

elf in my past life. The same toxic, mani

feeling solid and true in my mouth. "Sarah got

I don't know who you are anymore, Alex. Sarah wa

a shrug. "Or maybe

d no real argument against my calm refusal. All she had w

this," Chloe finally spat out,

ing on it,

stared at me, her mouth hanging open, se

he turned o

over her shoulder as she walked out the door,

. For the first time in a v