Keep it.
Go buy yourself dinner tomorrow, take a day, calm down, and then we’ll talk about this.”
I unlocked my phone.
For a second she looked relieved, as though I had finally agreed to negotiate.
Instead, I returned the transfer.
Her phone vibrated.
She looked down.
“Why did you send it back?”
“Because I don’t want dinner money.”
“Then what do you want?”
That question should have come months earlier.
Maybe years earlier.
I thought about saying I wanted my room back.
I wanted them to admit the group was cruel.
I wanted Leo to apologize.
I wanted Marla to stop pretending every boundary was an attack.
I wanted Dad to stop watching bad things happen and calling his silence neutrality.
I wanted Mom to understand that providing a roof did not erase the humiliation underneath it.
But wanting those things did not mean they could give them to me.
So I answered with the only thing I could control.
“Space.”
Mom’s shoulders fell.
“You’re really leaving us over this?”
“I’m leaving because I finally believe what you’ve been showing me.”
Nobody spoke.
I carried my suitcase onto the porch and set it beside the door.
That night, I slept on the folding cot for the last time.
I expected someone to come apologize.
Instead, I heard arguments behind closed doors.
Leo blamed me for upsetting Marla.
Mom told him to lower his voice.
Dad said they should have handled things differently.
Marla cried.
For once, I didn’t get up to fix any of it.
The next morning, my friend pulled up outside.
I was already dressed.
My suitcase, backpack, laptop, and document folder were beside me.
Mom stood in the kitchen in her robe.
She had barely slept.
“You can still change your mind,” she said.
I shook my head.
Dad carried my suitcase to the door without being asked.
Leo didn’t come out of his room.
Marla stood near the hallway wearing one of my old sweatshirts she had borrowed weeks earlier.
She pulled at the sleeve.
“Do you want this back?”
I looked at it.
There had been a time when finding her in my clothes would have started another argument.
Now it looked like exactly what it was: fabric.
“Keep it.”
She began crying again.
“Are you ever coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
Mom’s voice cracked.
“Xena.”
I turned toward her.
