My girlfriend came home after a w

token keepsake—just a front-row seat to my own stupidity.

I’d given a year of my life to a dying woman who, it seemed, left me with nothing but shame.

Growing up certain that every promise was a setup for disappointment, I had treated life like a series of exits—never unpacking, never attaching, always ready to run.

What began as a desperate bargain with continue reading …