Three days later I am standing in my apartment, the one with Vivienne's name on the deed, packing the last of what belongs to me.
I am not emotional about it, I am efficient.
Two suitcases, four boxes, the things that were mine before Derek and the things that became mine during him that I am taking anyway because I earned them. The rest he can divide with Vivienne however that conversation goes between two people who deserve each other's paperwork.
Rhys is carrying boxes to his car.
He does not comment on the apartment, on the deed, on the particular ugliness of packing up a life that was built on someone else's terms... He just lifts things and moves them and comes back for more, steady and present, and I am grateful in a way that does not need to be said out loud.
I am
