Chapter 10 - The Profit of Freedom
Six months later,
the sun rose over the city,
flooding my apartment with light.
The walls were no longer white,
I had painted them a deep,
soothing teal.
The furniture was new,
bought with my own money,
unchained from the orange stickers of the past.
Keaton had signed the divorce papers from a prison cell,
part of a plea deal to avoid the maximum sentence for the forgery.
Austin was serving three years for the fraud and the assault.
Bernice was living in a state-funded senior home,
her house having been seized by the very bank she tried to cheat.
I stood on my balcony,
sipping a cup of expensive,
freshly brewed coffee.
My phone chimed with a notification from the bank.
My monthly mortgage payment had been processed,
a transaction that no longer felt like a burden.
I was no longer the regional director,
I had been headhunted for a VP position at a rival firm.
My salary was now twenty thousand a month.
I looked down at the street below,
watching the people rushing to their own lives.
I thought about the night of the instant noodles,
the night I decided that my value was not in my paycheck,
but in my boundaries.
I had learned that you cannot buy love from people who only see you as a transaction.
You cannot fix people who are determined to break themselves.
And you certainly cannot build a home on a foundation of lies.
I walked back inside,
passing the room that was no longer a guest room.
It was a library now,
filled with books on finance,
history,
and travel.
Maybe one day,
years from now,
it would be a nursery.
But for now,
it was a room for me.
I picked up my briefcase,
the leather smooth and high-quality.
I had an audit to lead,
a team to inspire,
and a life to live.
I walked out of the apartment and locked the door,
the sound of the bolt clicking into place feeling like a period at the end of a long,
difficult sentence.
I was no longer paying for anyone else’s mistakes.
I was finally,
perfectly,
May you like
solvent.
The end.
