I don’t want my kid to grow up like that, Matvey. I’ve had enough of it for a lifetime. Being second choice, being second-best… you have no idea how painful it can be. How badly it can scar you.
Our baby deserves better than that. Better than a divided heart.
So now, I’m going to do the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The hardest thing any mother can do, really.
I’m going to do what’s best for my daughter.
I’m going to leave, and I’m not going to come back.
Unblinking, I stare at the letter in my hands. I can’t tell for how long—seconds, minutes, hours. It could be days for all I know.
She was wrong about at least one thing, though: My heart isn’t “divided.”
I punch the table so hard it breaks.
But the pain isn’t enough to ground me. Not the splinters in my hand, not the ache of the
