We are not going back

Chapter seventy- nine

I hadn’t been back here in a lifetime- the house that Olivia and I once called home. The place where we briefly raised our son. It still smelled like her, like us, like the life we’d built and destroyed within these walls. I knew I shouldn’t have come back. Kamala, the plan, Olivia- everything was closing in on me, but I couldn’t focus on that now. Not tonight. Today wasn’t about schemes or lies. It was about me. It was about the last bit of freedom I had left before everything fell apart.

I wandered through the empty house, the echoes of the past swirling around me, and grabbed the first wine bottle I saw. I poured the liquid down the drain and filled it with cranberry juice. I wasn’t going to drink, not after everything. But I needed something in my hands, something to make me feel like I was cutting loose. I uncorked the bottle and tipped it back, letting the tart juice flood my mouth, pretending it was something stronger.

And then, without thinking, I cranked up the stereo, the opening chords of Meredith Brooks' "Bitch" filling the empty space. The song hit me like a jolt of electricity, and suddenly, I didn’t care anymore. About the plan, about Olivia, about Kamala’s apologies. None of it mattered.

I demanded to be free, if only for a few hours.

“I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother…”

I screamed the lyrics at the top of my lungs, my voice hoarse but full of raw, reckless energy. I twirled around the living room, knocking over chairs, sending a vase shattering against the wall. It felt good. It felt like letting go of years of pain, of confusion, of being trapped in a life that wasn’t mine.

The house was my personal hell, chaos swirling around me like a storm, but I felt more alive than I had in years. My body hummed with energy, every nerve on fire as I danced through the house in nothing but black lace lingerie. I hadn’t planned for this -I hadn’t planned for any of this- but once I put on the lingerie, something inside me clicked. It felt like I was shedding all the bullshit layers- the lies, the pain, the past.

I was stripped down to my most raw, unapologetic self.

I ran my hands through my hair, feeling the tension finally beginning to release from my shoulders. The lace of my lingerie clung to my skin, and I reveled in how it felt- liberating, defiant.

This wasn’t about looking good or being sexy for anyone else. This was for me.

It was a celebration, a fuck-you to everything that had been weighing me down for so long.

I grabbed a cigarette, lighting it with shaky hands, the smoke curling into the air as I stomped through the house, smashing plates, tearing apart furniture, laughing like I had lost my goddamn mind. Maybe I had. But it didn’t matter, because in this moment, I didn’t feel caged. I didn’t feel watched or judged.

I felt… alive.

I strutted across the kitchen, cigarette dangling from my lips, hips swaying to the beat as I sent more plates crashing to the floor. The sound of it breaking was like a release- a final exhale after years of holding it all in. I threw another plate, then another, watching them shatter against the wall, the pieces flying everywhere.

I grabbed the photos off the wall- pictures of Olivia and me smiling, happy, back when I thought love could fix everything. I ripped them to shreds, the paper tearing between my fingers as I threw the pieces into the air like confetti.

“I’m a sinner, I’m a saint, I do not feel ashamed…”

I danced like a lunatic, throwing my body around the house, knocking over anything in my path. I felt wild, free from the constraints of being the "good" version of me- the version that loved too hard, that trusted too easily.