He Protected My Baby’s Killer So I Left Him Chapter 13
I lived in Austin for three months.
My parents put their work on hold and rented a house with me.
It wasn’t large, but the living room had a wall of south-facing windows.
Toast spent his days sprawled on the windowsill, soaking up the sun.
When we first arrived, he would dart under the bed anytime he heard a man’s voice outside the door.
Slowly, he got better.
So did I.
That first month, I kept waking up in the middle of the night.
In my dreams, it was always the same: a car speeding toward me.
I would call out for them, over and over.
No one ever answered.
When I woke up, my mother would be there with a glass of warm water.
My father would be standing in the doorway, holding Toast.
They never told me to forgive anyone. They never asked when I was going to pull myself together.
They just ate with me, walked with me, and came with me to my follow-up appointments.
I used to think I didn’t need anyone to take care of me.
Now I understood.
Real care isn’t a crowd of people hovering when things are easy.
It’s the one person who shows up when you ask for help.
Once I had recovered, I accepted a transfer my company had offered.
The Austin branch had just landed a new project and needed someone to lead it.
I had already turned down the same offer twice.
Matteo had never liked the idea of long distance.
He’d said that after we were married, his life would be centered in New York, and it would be better if I didn’t go too far.
Looking back, the opportunities I’d given up for him felt much smaller than I had once believed.