I did.
I changed every lock in the house. I installed cameras. I learned the difference between caution and fear.
Fear says, They might come back.
Caution says, They no longer get in.
Sometimes people ask whether I miss my family.
The honest answer is that I miss the family I kept hoping they would become. I miss a version of my mother who would have answered the phone and said, “Are you safe?” I miss a brother who would have run toward the fire instead of lighting it. I miss a father who would have chosen truth before prison forced it out of him.
But I do not miss the real ones.
The real ones stood outside my life for years with matches in their hands.
The night my apartment burned, I thought I had lost everything.
I was wrong.
Ik verloor de illusie dat ik nog steeds wachtte om geliefd te worden door mensen die alleen toegang wilden.
En in de as, onder alle rook en verwoesting, vond ik het enige wat ze nooit hadden verwacht dat ik zou bewaren.
Bewijs.
