Chapter 26 — The Boundary Break
Boundaries are promises you make to yourself and to others. They are not walls but gates—deliberate, guarded, and sometimes necessary to keep the garden from being trampled. I had set mine clearly: honesty, no ghosting, respect for my time, and the right to say no without explanation. I believed in them like a creed. The night Mateo crossed a line taught me how fragile those gates could be. It began with a text. I was at work, drafting copy for a client, when my phone buzzed with a message from Mateo that read like a storm: Who were you with last night? Why didn’t you tell me? The tone was sharp, the kind of thing that makes your stomach drop. I called him instead of replying with a text. His voice was raw when he picked up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I saw a photo of you with Rian and I pan
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