PART 3   I stared at the hospital bracelet in the lunchbox until the letters of my own name blurred.

keep paying rent in Seattle and Los Angeles.

Walter knew before I said it.

“You don’t owe me a place,” he told me.

We were standing by the back gate.

The evening light made the alley look softer than it was.

I hated that sentence.

Not because it was wrong.

Because it forced me to face the difference between love and rescue.

My mother’s final letter had warned continue reading …