She meant to just pack a bag.
That's what she told herself at midnight, standing in her room with the door locked — both locks, useless against a master key, but habit was habit — yanking clothes off hangers with hands that wouldn't stop shaking. She wasn't leaving forever. She told herself that too. She just needed to not be in this house for one night. Needed walls that didn't have his roses on every surface and his mother's wedding binder on the kitchen counter and that faint smell of smoke she swore she could still catch in the air even though the fire had been miles away.
She thought about her old apartment. Third floor, broken lock on the front door, mold in the bathroom corner. It should have felt like going backwards. Standing there at midnight with a half-packed duffel, it felt
