I glance at the receipt again. My fingers trace the numbers, the date, the small, insignificant details.
It’s almost laughable—something so trivial, something so small, holding all that weight. All the things I can’t take back. All the things I should have done differently.
But that’s the trick, isn’t it? We think these things are small.
We think we can control them. That we can make deals, take what we need, and leave everything else behind.
We think we’ll know when to stop. But we don’t.
And that’s the real cost. Not the power, not the promise to protect, not even the people we lost along the way. No, the real cost is the moment we stop questioning what we’re willing to lose.
The moment we stop seeing the value in what we’re sacrificing because we’ve convinced ourselves it’s all for something bigger, something better.
That’s when it’s too late.
All along, I thought I had time. But you never really do. Time doesn’t wait for you to figure things out.
And now, it’s gone. All of it. The people, the promises, the parts of me that used to matter.
Funny. You’d think a receipt would be more useful.
But it’s not.
