CHAPTER 10 — THE NEW YEAR WE DESERVED
One year later, we celebrated New Year’s Eve differently.
No luxury resort.
No expensive champagne.
No fake smiles.
Just us.
Our apartment was filled with warmth.
Claire cooked dinner.
Lily wore a tiny dress and tried to grab every decoration she could reach.
I held my daughter while watching fireworks over Chicago.
The same view I imagined the year before.
Only this time, it was real.
Claire stood beside me.
“Do you ever think about that night?”
I looked at her.
“Sometimes.”
“Does it still hurt?”
I thought about it.
The cold kitchen.
The empty refrigerator.
The fear in her eyes.
The betrayal.
“Yes,” I said.
“But not the way it used to.”
She smiled softly.
“Why?”
“Because that night showed me something.”
“What?”
I looked at my wife and daughter.
“That losing people who hurt you can make room for the people who truly love you.”
At midnight, fireworks filled the sky.
Claire kissed me.
Lily laughed in my arms.
And somewhere across the country, my mother and sister continued living with the consequences of their choices.
They lost my trust.
They lost access to my life.
But the greatest thing they lost was something they never understood they had:
A son and brother who would have done anything for them.
All they had to do was love the family he built.
Instead, they tried to destroy it.
And in the end…
May you like
they were the ones left outside.
THE END
