I lock the study door behind me, and the soft click is a soft reminder of what is closed off, what is secure, what is certain. It echoes through the house, echoes through me, echoes in the parts of me that hurt and the parts of me that know. My footsteps are deliberate against the wooden floor, deliberate and even and controlled, controlled against the storm of emotions, controlled against the storm outside.
I move through the house, and the walls seem larger than before, larger and more distant and full of memories, full of a past that is not real, full of a life that is not real, that is not mine.
The office is a sanctuary, a sanctuary from Derek, a sanctuary from what we were, from what I thought we were. I breathe it in, breathe it in like the air I know how to breathe, like the ai
