He smiled. “Does that mean you’ll stop borrowing my pen?”
I laughed so hard I startled myself.
And in that laughter was something I hadn’t felt since Terrence died: a future that didn’t feel like betrayal.
Sometimes at night, I still miss Terrence so sharply it steals my breath. Grief doesn’t vanish. It changes shape. It becomes a familiar shadow that follows you into new rooms.
But now when I think of him, I don’t only think of the accident, or the funeral, or Beverly’s screaming.
I think of him in a diner booth, black coffee in front of him, leaving a twenty-dollar tip on a six-dollar check because he believed small kindness mattered.
I think of him holding my face and saying, I made sure of it.
He did.
He protected me with money, yes.
But more than that, he protected me with truth.
He gave me a chance to see who would love me when the glitter fell off.
And what I learned—painfully—was this:
Money doesn’t change you.
It reveals everyone else.
It shows you who stands beside you when you’re broken and who starts measuring you for a coffin.
It shows you who confuses love with ownership, and who offers kindness with no receipt attached.