REJECT ME NOW, I DARE YOU!

Closure

*RILEY HARRINGTON'S POV*

Two weeks later, I got a package.

No return address. Just my name.

Inside was a small box.

My engagement ring.

And a note in Wilden’s handwriting:

Riley,

You were right. I kept you small because I was scared of being small next to you.

You don’t need me to be whole.

I’m sorry.

—W_

I stared at it for a long time. The weight of it felt different now. Not heavy with expectation or guilt, but light, like something I was finally free to let go of.

Then I put the ring in the box, closed it, and dropped it in the donation bin for women’s shelters.

Let someone else use it to start over.

Mary called that night. “He’s been calling me every day. Asking about you.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“That you’re happy,” she said. “And that’s all he needs to know.”

I was.

Happy didn’t mean I had everything. It meant I was finally okay with what I had: myself.

For years I measured my worth against how well I fit into his life, his plans, his insecurities. Now I measured it in quiet mornings, in work I was proud of, in nights where I slept without rehearsing apologies.

The past didn’t stop existing. But it stopped owning me.

I kept the note. Not as a tether, but as proof. Proof that I’d been right to walk away, and that closure didn’t always need a conversation. Sometimes it just needed a decision.