Six months after Daniel moved out, Kassie finally felt like she could breathe again.
The first few months had been brutal. The house felt wrong without him. Emma cried for him constantly. Kassie found herself reaching for her phone to text him about small things—something funny Emma said, a problem with the car—before remembering they didn’t do that anymore.
Daniel picked up Emma every other weekend, just like before. But now when he pulled into the driveway, he didn’t come inside. He texted when he was there and waited in his truck. Emma would run out, climb in, and they’d drive away.
It was cordial. Polite. Painfully distant.
They’d become experts at co-parenting without actually having to see each other.
But slowly, the sharp edges of the pain dulled. Kassie stopped looking at phot
