No gifts, no call, nothing for the fifth straight birthday. Then I saw my sister’s Instagram story— a bow‑wrapped car and “thank you, Mom and Dad.” So I cut them off. Two days later, Mom showed up crying on my porch.

I turned thirty‑two on a Tuesday. The day started like any other, with my alarm glaring at 6:30 and the Philadelphia morning traffic already humming outside my apartment window. I made coffee, fed my cat Winston, and checked my phone while the shower warmed up. Three texts from friends— one from my college roommate Melissa— and a Facebook notification reminding me that yes, it was indeed my birthday. Nothing from my parents. Nothing from my sister, Chelsea.

The silence shouldn’t have stung anymore. This marked the fifth year in a row where my birthday passed without acknowledgment from my family— five years of waking up with a small, pathetic flutter of hope that maybe this time would be different; five years of that hope dying by noon when I realized my phone wasn’t going to ring; five years of convincing myself I didn’t care, while something inside me withered just a little bit more.

I went to work at the marketing firm where I’ve been grinding away for seven years, climbing from intern to senior account manager through pure determination and sixty‑hour weeks. My co‑workers had decorated my cubicle with streamers and brought cupcakes. Jenna from accounting gave me a gift card to Target. These people— who knew me only through deadline stress and occasional happy hours— remembered my birthday. My own mother couldn’t be bothered to send a text.

The cupcake tasted like cardboard in my mouth, but I smiled and thanked everyone because that’s what you do. You pretend the fundamental rejection from the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally doesn’t leave you feeling hollow. You pretend it’s fine.

After work, I stopped at the grocery store and bought myself a small cake from the bakery section. The woman behind the counter asked if I wanted anything written on it, and I said no. What would I have written? “Happy Birthday to me. From me”? I went home, lit a single candle, made a wish I knew wouldn’t come true, and ate two slices while watching reality TV with Winston purring in my lap.

Around 9:00 p.m., I made the mistake of opening Instagram. Chelsea’s story popped up first. My younger sister— twenty‑eight and still living in our hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania— had posted a video. The first frame showed her covering her eyes while someone, presumably our parents, told her to open them. The camera panned to reveal a brand‑new Honda CR‑V in the driveway, complete with an enormous red bow on the hood.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Are you serious?” Chelsea’s voice shrieked through my phone speakers. The video showed her jumping up and down, hugging her mother, our father beaming in the background. The next slide was a photo of Chelsea posing next to the car, keys in hand, with a caption: “Best parents ever. Thank you, Mom and Dad. I can’t believe you did this. I’m crying happy tears. Love you both so much.”

I sat there on my secondhand couch in my quiet apartment, staring at my phone screen. The cake sat half‑eaten on my coffee table. My birthday candle had burned down to nothing. Something inside me didn’t crack. It didn’t shatter. It simply turned off— like a light switch flipping down. The desperate part of me that had spent five years making excuses for them just stopped functioning. Maybe they’re busy. Maybe they forgot. Maybe they’re going through something. Maybe they’ll call later. Maybe they do love me; they just show it differently. All those maybes evaporated.

I was done.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t rage. I simply opened my contacts and blocked both of their numbers. Then I blocked Chelsea. I went to Facebook and unfriended all three of them, then blocked them there, too. Instagram— same thing. I went through every social media platform I could think of and systematically erased them from my digital life. The whole process took maybe twenty minutes. When I finished, I felt nothing— just a strange, clean emptiness.

The next morning, I woke up feeling lighter than I had in years. I made my coffee, fed Winston, and got ready for work without checking my phone every five minutes to see if they’d finally remembered. There was no one to remember now. No one to disappoint me. The loop had been broken.

Work felt different that day. I actually focused on the presentation I was preparing for a major client instead of spiraling into thoughts about why I wasn’t good enough for my own parents to remember. My colleague Marcus asked if I wanted to grab lunch and I said yes— instead of making an excuse to eat alone at my desk while obsessively checking my phone. We went to this Vietnamese place two blocks from the office, and I found myself laughing at his stories about his disastrous attempt to assemble IKEA furniture over the weekend.

“You seem different today,” Marcus said, dipping a spring roll into peanut sauce. “I don’t know… more present, or something.”

I considered telling him everything but settled for a partial truth. “I made a difficult decision last night. It was the right thing to do, but it wasn’t easy.”

He nodded, not pushing for details. “Those are usually the decisions that change everything.” He had no idea how right he was.

That evening, I did something I hadn’t done in years. I called my college roommate, Melissa, and actually talked to her for over an hour. Not the surface‑level catching up we usually did, but a real conversation. I told her everything— the forgotten birthdays, the car, the blocking, all of it.

She listened without interrupting, and when I finished she was quiet for a moment. “Sarah, I’m going to say something and I need you to hear me. I’ve watched you make excuses for them since we were eighteen years old. I’ve watched you drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what you did wrong— how you could fix whatever invisible problem was keeping them from loving you properly. There was never anything wrong with you. They failed you, not the other way around.”

My throat tightened. “I keep waiting to feel like I made a mistake. Like I overreacted.”

“You didn’t overreact. You finally reacted appropriately to years of neglect. There’s a difference.” She paused. “You want to know what I remember most about sophomore year? You planned this whole trip home for your dad’s birthday. You left campus at, like, five in the morning to get there early. Brought him this expensive fishing rod he’d mentioned wanting. You were so excited. And when you came back that Sunday night, you looked destroyed. What happened that weekend?”

I’d forgotten about that. Or maybe I’d buried it. “They planned a surprise party for Chelsea. Her birthday was three weeks away, but they wanted to do it that weekend because more people could come. The whole day became about her. Dad opened my gift and said thanks, then spent the rest of the party talking about what a great daughter Chelsea was for organizing the whole thing. I ate cake and watched everyone celebrate her. I drove back to campus at 8:00 p.m. because no one noticed when I said I was leaving.”

“Exactly. And that was just one weekend out of hundreds of examples. You’ve been training yourself not to need them because needing them hurt too much. Cutting them off isn’t cruel, Sarah. It’s self‑defense.”

After we hung up, I sat with her words. Self‑defense. That’s exactly what it was. I was protecting myself from people who kept hurting me— even if they were related to me by blood.

The next few days brought an unexpected sense of freedom. I rearranged my living‑room furniture just because I felt like it. I ordered Thai food at 11:00 p.m. on a Wednesday. I bought a plant that was probably too expensive but made my apartment feel more alive. These were small things— insignificant, really— but they felt like declarations of independence. I wasn’t waiting for anyone’s approval anymore. I wasn’t trying to be the daughter they wanted. I was just being myself.

Friday night, my phone rang from an unsaved number with a Lancaster area code. I let it go to voicemail. Ten minutes later, another call from a different Lancaster number. Voicemail again. They were trying to find ways around the blocks— probably calling from friends’ phones or the hardware store landline. I changed my voicemail message to a generic recording and turned off notifications for unknown numbers.

Saturday morning brought a knock at my door. I opened it to find a delivery guy holding an enormous bouquet of flowers. My stomach sank.

“Sarah Harmon?”

“That’s me.”

He handed them over, and I carried them inside with a sense of dread. The card read: “We’re so sorry. Please call us. We love you so much. — Mom and Dad.”

I stared at those flowers for a long time. They were beautiful— expensive lilies and roses arranged in a crystal vase that probably cost more than the flowers themselves. This was the problem, though. They thought love was something you could purchase and deliver. They thought a bouquet could erase five years of silence— could substitute for the fundamental act of remembering your child existed.

I took a photo of the arrangement and the card, saved it to the same folder as Chelsea’s email, and then donated the entire thing to the nursing home down the street. The woman at the front desk looked delighted.

“These are gorgeous. What’s the occasion?”

“No occasion. I just thought the residents would enjoy them more than me.”

Walking back to my apartment, I felt proud of myself. The old Sarah would have kept those flowers— would have let them sit on her counter as a reminder that maybe her parents did care, even if they showed it badly. The new Sarah understood that grand gestures after the fact didn’t undo years of quiet neglect.

I should probably explain how things got to this point. Growing up, I wasn’t neglected or abused. I was just… less. Less interesting than Chelsea. Less accomplished in the ways that mattered to my parents. Less worthy of attention. Chelsea was the cheerleader, the homecoming queen, the one who dated the football captain and got elected class president. I was the bookworm who stayed late in the library and joined the debate team. Chelsea was vivacious and social. I was reserved and academic.

My parents, Linda and Robert Harmon, owned a moderately successful hardware store in Lancaster. They were practical people who valued tangible achievement they could brag about at church and to their neighbors. Chelsea’s social successes were currency they could spend in their community. My good grades were just expected— unremarkable. When Chelsea made the cheerleading squad, they threw a party. When I got into Penn State with a partial scholarship, my father said, “That’s nice,” and went back to reading the newspaper.

The pattern continued through college. Chelsea went to a small local school and lived at home, so she remained the center of their universe. I moved to Philadelphia and slowly became a stranger. They came to exactly one of my college events in four years— my graduation— and even then they left early because Chelsea had a thing they needed to get back for.

After graduation, I stayed in Philadelphia and built my career. Chelsea moved back home, worked part‑time at the boutique, and dated a series of guys our parents found charming. Every family gathering revolved around Chelsea’s latest drama or achievement. I would drive the hour and a half home for holidays, sit quietly while everyone fawned over my sister, and drive back feeling invisible.

The birthday thing started after I turned twenty‑seven. I’d always gotten a card before that— usually with a check for fifty dollars and a generic message. But that year, nothing came. When I called to thank them for the card I assumed was lost in the mail, my mother sounded confused.

“Oh, honey, did we not send one? I thought we did. Well— happy belated birthday.”

Chelsea had turned twenty‑three that same year and received a surprise party with fifty guests. Twenty‑eight, nothing. Twenty‑nine, nothing. Thirty, nothing. Thirty‑one, nothing. Each year, I told myself I wouldn’t care, and each year, I checked my mailbox obsessively for a week leading up to the day— hope battling with resignation. Meanwhile, Chelsea’s birthdays became increasingly elaborate productions documented extensively on social media— surprise trips to the beach, designer purses, jewelry, and now a car.

I tried talking to them about it. Two years ago, during Christmas dinner, I carefully brought up feeling disconnected from the family. My mother patted my hand and said, “Oh, sweetie, you’re just so independent. You don’t need us like Chelsea does.” My father added, “You’ve always been self‑sufficient. It’s a good quality.” They made my abandonment sound like a compliment.

So, yeah. I was done.

Two days after I blocked them— Thursday afternoon— I was working from home when my doorbell rang. Winston hissed and ran under the bed, which should have been my first warning. I peered through the peephole and felt my stomach drop. My mother stood on my porch, her eyes red and swollen, mascara streaked down her cheeks. She was wearing her church clothes, which meant she’d planned this visit, and she was clutching her purse to her chest like a shield.

I considered not answering. I could have stood there silently and waited for her to leave, but I opened the door, keeping the security chain latched.

“Sarah,” she said, her voice breaking on my name. “Please— we need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Your father and I are so confused. We’ve been trying to call you for two days. Chelsea said you blocked all of us on Facebook and Instagram. What’s going on? What did we do?”

The audacity of the question hit me like a physical blow. What did they do? They had genuinely no idea.

“When’s my birthday, Mom?” I asked, my voice flat.

She blinked, confused by the question. “What? Your birthday? It’s in September, isn’t it?”

“It was Tuesday. Three days ago. I turned thirty‑two.”

Her face went through several complicated emotions— confusion, then dawning realization, then defensiveness.

“Oh, honey, we’ve just been so busy with the store and helping Chelsea with her car registration—”

“Her car. The car you bought her?”

“Well, yes. She needed reliable transportation for her new job, and we wanted to help her get started on the right foot.”

“I saw her Instagram story, Mom. From Tuesday— my birthday— the day you apparently forgot existed.”

My mother’s face crumpled. “Sarah, we didn’t forget. We just— we got the dates mixed up. We thought your birthday was next week. We were planning to call then.”

“You forgot my birthday five years in a row. Five. This isn’t about ‘getting dates mixed up.’”

“That’s not fair. We’ve been dealing with a lot. Your father’s blood pressure has been acting up, and Chelsea broke up with Brandon, and the store’s been struggling—”

“I sent you both cards for your birthdays. I sent them for Christmas. I invited you to Philadelphia for dinner last month and you said you were too busy. I’ve been reaching out for years while you lavish attention on Chelsea and ignore my existence.”

“We don’t ignore you. You’re just so far away— and so busy with your career. Chelsea needs us more.”

There it was again— the same justification they’ve been using for years, as if my independence was a reason to abandon me rather than something they should be proud of.

“Chelsea is twenty‑eight years old and you just bought her a car. A car. Mom, when I was twenty‑eight, I had been living on my own for six years, paying my own rent, building my own life. Did you ever think I might need support, too? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m independent because I had to be? Because I learned early that I couldn’t count on anyone else?”

“That’s not true. We’ve always been here for you.”

“You haven’t been here for me since I graduated high school. Maybe longer. I’ve been an afterthought for a decade— a checkbox you occasionally remember to tick when you’re not busy doting on your favorite daughter.”

“Don’t say that. We don’t have favorites.”

“Mom, you bought Chelsea a car on my birthday. You bought her a car and didn’t even remember that the day you gave it to her was the day I was born. How can you stand there and tell me you don’t have favorites?”

She was fully crying now, her shoulders shaking. “We love you both the same. We do. We just— Chelsea has always needed more attention. You were always so easy, so smart, so capable. We didn’t think you needed us as much.”

“Everyone needs their parents, Mom. Everyone needs to feel like they matter.”

“You do matter. Of course you matter.”

“When was the last time you asked me how I was doing? When was the last time you asked about my job, my life— anything? When was the last time you initiated contact with me instead of waiting for me to call you?”

She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. She couldn’t answer because she couldn’t remember— because it had been years.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I said quietly. “I can’t keep showing up to a family that doesn’t show up for me. I can’t keep hoping things will change when they clearly won’t.”

“So what? You’re just cutting us out? We’re your parents, Sarah.”

“You’re right. You are my parents. And you forgot my birthday five years in a row while throwing elaborate celebrations for Chelsea. You bought her a car, while I haven’t received so much as a text message from you in months. Being my parents means you had a responsibility to love me equally, and you failed. You’ve been failing for years— and I’ve been making excuses for you. I’m done making excuses.”

“Please don’t do this. We can fix this. We’ll do better.”

“You’ve had five years to do better. You didn’t need me to spell this out for you to understand that forgetting your daughter’s birthday is hurtful. You knew. You just didn’t care enough to change.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then why didn’t you change? Why did it take me blocking you for you to show up? Why did it take me finally setting a boundary for you to suddenly care?”

She didn’t have an answer for that either.

“I need you to leave now,” I said.

“Sarah, please—”

“Mom. Leave. I’m asking you to respect this one thing and leave.”

“Can we at least talk about this more? Can I call you tomorrow?”

“No. I need space. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to have you in my life again, but I know I’m not ready now. You need to go.”

She stood there for another moment, tears streaming down her face, and I felt a pang of guilt. But I also felt something stronger: resolve. I was tired of setting myself on fire to keep them warm. I was exhausted from begging for crumbs of affection while watching them heap love on Chelsea.

“Please tell your daughter she matters,” my mother whispered. “If you ever have children, please don’t make them feel the way you’re saying we made you feel.”

The guilt‑trip attempt almost made me laugh. Almost. “If I ever have children, I’ll love them equally and remember their birthdays. Now, please go.”

She finally turned and walked down the steps to her car— a newer model than the one Chelsea just got. I watched her drive away, closed the door, and slid down to sit on my floor with my back against it. Winston emerged from under the bed and climbed into my lap, purring. I didn’t cry. I just sat there, feeling the weight of the decision I’d made.

Over the next few weeks, they tried everything. My father called from his work number, which I didn’t have saved, and left a long voicemail about how I was breaking my mother’s heart and needed to be reasonable. Chelsea somehow got my work email and sent a long message about how I was being selfish and dramatic, how Mom and Dad did their best, how I was tearing the family apart over something petty. My mother sent a letter to my apartment— three pages of apologies mixed with justifications and guilt trips. I didn’t respond to any of it. I saved the voicemail and Chelsea’s email in a folder just in case, but I didn’t engage. Each attempt they made to contact me just reinforced that I’d made the right choice. They weren’t sorry for what they’d done. They were sorry I’d stopped accepting it.

The letter from my mother was particularly revealing. She wrote about how difficult it was being a parent; how they tried their best with limited resources; how I’d always been so self‑sufficient that they assumed I didn’t need them. Then came the passage that made me laugh bitterly: “We always knew you’d be fine because you’re so strong and capable. Chelsea needs us more because she’s more fragile. We thought we were doing the right thing by giving each of you what you needed.”

What I needed was to feel loved. What I needed was for my birthday to matter. What I needed was to not be punished for being competent by receiving less affection. But according to her logic, my capability meant I deserved less care. It was absurd.

I showed the letter to my therapist, Dr. Patricia Chen, during our next session. I’d started seeing her a week after cutting off my family, knowing I’d need professional help processing everything.

“What strikes you most about this letter?” she asked.

“She makes it sound like neglecting me was good parenting— like they were doing me a favor by ignoring me because it made me stronger.”

“And do you believe that?”

“No. I believe I became self‑sufficient because I had no other choice. I became strong because relying on them meant constant disappointment. They’re taking credit for something they forced me to develop as a survival mechanism.”

Dr. Chen nodded. “That’s a very clear understanding of the dynamic. Many people struggle to see that distinction.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” I said. “Years of trying to understand why I wasn’t enough.”

“You were always enough, Sarah. They weren’t.”

Those words hit differently coming from a professional. This wasn’t just my friends being supportive or me being dramatic. This was someone trained to recognize unhealthy family dynamics confirming what I’d suspected all along.

The week Chelsea’s wedding email arrived, I had a breakthrough in therapy. Dr. Chen asked me to imagine giving advice to a friend in my situation. “What would you tell her to do?”

“I’d tell her not to go,” I said immediately. “I’d tell her that attending would just hurt her more. That she doesn’t owe people her presence at their celebrations when they couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge hers.”

“So why is it harder to give yourself that same advice?”

“Because they’re my family. Because society says you’re supposed to forgive family. Because people will think I’m bitter and cruel.”

“Are you bitter and cruel?”

I thought about it honestly. “No. I’m hurt. I’m angry. But I’m not trying to punish them. I’m trying to protect myself.”

“Those are very different motivations. Bitter and cruel would be going to the wedding and causing a scene. Bitter and cruel would be trying to sabotage their relationships or hurt them the way they hurt you. Protecting yourself is simply declining an invitation to an event that would cause you pain. You’re allowed to do that.”

So when Chelsea’s text came, I didn’t agonize over it for days. I didn’t create elaborate scenarios in my mind where I went to the wedding and everything magically became okay. I simply deleted it and moved forward.

A month later, I was having coffee with Jenna when she asked how my family was doing. I’d never told my co‑workers the full story— just that we weren’t in contact anymore.

“I actually don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t spoken to them in almost six months.”

“That must be hard,” Jenna said sympathetically.

“It’s actually not. That’s the weird part. I thought it would be this constant ache, but mostly I just feel relieved.”

“Maybe that tells you something important.”

“It does. It tells me the relationship was costing me more than it was giving me.”

Jenna stirred her latte thoughtfully. “My sister and I don’t talk either. Haven’t for three years. Everyone always acts like that’s this terrible tragedy, but honestly, my life is better without her toxicity in it. Not all family relationships are worth preserving.”

It was comforting to know I wasn’t alone in this. Society pushed this narrative that family was everything— that blood mattered above all else— that you had to forgive and maintain relationships no matter how much they damaged you. But sitting across from Jenna, who’d made the same difficult choice I had, I felt validated in a way I hadn’t before.

My friends rallied around me. Melissa came over with wine and listened to the whole story without judgment. Jenna from work took me out for a belated birthday dinner at an expensive restaurant downtown. My neighbor, an elderly woman named Dorothy, told me about cutting off her own toxic family in her forties and never regretting it.

“Blood doesn’t obligate you to accept mistreatment,” Dorothy said over tea one Saturday afternoon. “Family is supposed to be your safe place, not the place you have to defend yourself.”

The hardest part wasn’t the guilt or the grief. It was the relief. I felt lighter without them, which made me sad in a different way. Shouldn’t losing your family feel heavier? Shouldn’t it hurt more? But instead, I felt like I’d put down a backpack full of rocks I’d been carrying for years. My shoulders didn’t ache anymore from holding up one‑sided relationships.

Three months later, I got a text from an unknown number. “This is Chelsea. I’m getting married. Mom and Dad want you to come to the wedding. Please consider it. I know we haven’t been close, but you’re my sister.”

I stared at the message for a long time. Part of me wondered if this could be an olive branch— a chance to rebuild something. But then I thought about what attending would mean. I’d watch my parents fawn over Chelsea on her special day while I sat in the background, probably at a table with distant cousins who barely knew my name. I’d watch them give speeches about what an amazing daughter Chelsea was and how proud they were of her. I’d be expected to smile and pretend everything was fine— to rug five years of forgotten birthdays and a lifetime of being second‑best.

I deleted the message.

Two months after that, my company promoted me to Director of Client Relations— a position that came with a significant raise and my own office. I celebrated with my work friends and bought myself the expensive handbag I’d been eyeing for months. I posted a photo on Instagram— which my family couldn’t see— with a caption: “Sometimes the best revenge is living well.”

A year after I cut them off, I was thriving. I’d started therapy and was working through the complex emotions around rejection and self‑worth. I dated a few people— nothing serious— but I was learning what healthy relationships looked like. I’d taken a solo trip to Ireland and discovered I loved traveling alone. I’d adopted a second cat, a rescue named Elellaner, who was missing, and I had the most loving personality. I still thought about them sometimes. I wondered if they ever really understood what they’d done. I wondered if Chelsea’s wedding was beautiful. I wondered if my father’s blood pressure had stabilized. But I didn’t wonder enough to reach out.

The second year brought my thirty‑fourth birthday. Melissa threw me a surprise party with twenty people from various parts of my life. We went to a painting class, drank too much wine, and created terrible art while laughing until our stomachs hurt. Someone started a “Sarah’s Birthday Facts” game where everyone shared something they loved about me. I cried— but they were good tears. My phone didn’t ring with calls from Lancaster. My mailbox didn’t contain cards with their handwriting. The silence was no longer painful. It was peaceful.

People ask me sometimes if I regret cutting them off. They ask if I think I overreacted— if maybe I should have given them another chance. I tell them this: You teach people how to treat you by what you’re willing to accept. I spent years accepting breadcrumbs while watching them give Chelsea a feast. I spent years making myself smaller so their favoritism would hurt less. I spent years hoping they’d change while they proved repeatedly that they wouldn’t. Cutting them off wasn’t revenge. It was self‑preservation.

I don’t hate my parents. I don’t hate Chelsea. But I don’t miss them either, which maybe says everything that needs to be said. Real family doesn’t forget you exist. Real love doesn’t require you to beg for it. Real relationships don’t leave you feeling empty and inadequate.

I have a family now. It’s made up of friends who remember my birthday without Facebook reminders, co‑workers who celebrate my wins, neighbors who check on me when I’m sick, and two rescue cats who greet me at the door every night. It’s not the family I was born into, but it’s the family I chose— and that family shows up.

Last week, I ran into someone from my hometown at a coffee shop in Philadelphia. She recognized me and said she’d heard through the grapevine that my parents were telling people I’d moved away and they didn’t hear from me much. Not that we’d had a falling out; not that they’d done anything wrong; just that I was busy with my career and had drifted away.

I smiled and changed the subject. Let them tell themselves whatever story helps them sleep at night. I know the truth.

The truth is that I didn’t drift away. I didn’t move on because I was too busy or too successful or too independent. I left because they made it clear I wasn’t a priority. And I finally believed them. The truth is that love isn’t supposed to hurt this much. Family isn’t supposed to make you feel this alone. And you don’t owe anyone your presence in their life just because you share DNA. The truth is that I’m happier without them, which is perhaps the saddest truth of all. But it’s my truth, and I’m at peace with it. And that’s worth more than a thousand forgotten birthdays.

Sometimes I imagine a different version of my life where they loved me the way I needed them to— where they called on my birthday; where my accomplishments mattered as much as Chelsea’s; where I didn’t have to cut them off because they never gave me a reason to. But that’s not the life I got. This is the life I got, and I’m making it beautiful anyway— without them.

And maybe that’s the real ending here. Not reconciliation or revenge or some big dramatic moment where they finally realize what they lost. Just me, building a life that doesn’t include them and finding out that I’m enough all on my own.

I always have been.