PROLOGUE ♱ It's Too Late

THEN: September 1993

            𝕵oanna De La Cruz had learned the art of survival long before she understood its true meaning. It wasn't a gift, but a skill—born from grief and sharpened by the brutal need to keep moving when everything around her had already fallen apart.

            At twelve, survival had not been a choice. It had come unbidden, a cruel twist of fate she never saw coming.

            The crash hit with a violence that split her world in two. Metal shrieked. Glass erupted. The car spun wildly, flipping into a blur of destruction, her small body flung forward with bone-rattling force. The seatbelt bit into her ribs. Air ripped from her lungs. And then—nothing.

            Her father had been driving. Always the one at the wheel, even when his hands shook. Even when his knuckles went white against the steering wheel, his lips moving in frantic, whispered prayers—half-spoken Hail Marys, unfinished acts of contrition. Even when he said God spoke to him in his dreams.

            She barely remembered the way the car veered, only the sound—a sharp inhale, a muttered plea, tires screaming against asphalt.

            Santiago had been in the backseat. Her little brother. Only a year younger. A shadow of her, but lighter and brighter in every way—still untouched by the pressure of their father's devotions. But she saw it in his eyes sometimes, the way he flinched at their father's fevered sermons, the way he shrank when their father's love twisted into something that demanded penance. By the time the ambulance arrived, he was already gone. Ripped from her life in an instant. Gone before she could reach for him. Gone before she could understand the magnitude of it. One moment, he was there. The next, he was nothing but a severed thread in the fabric of her memory.

            When she woke up, antiseptic burned her nostrils. Machines hummed faintly around her, their beeping a cruel reminder that she was still here. A survivor. But what was survival if there was nothing left? She heard the doctors murmur over her battered body. She won't make it. But they were wrong.

            She did.

            Her father, in the hospital bed right beside her, did not.

            She was the only one left. But there was no relief in it. No sense of victory. Nothing but the haunting echo of the heart monitor flat lining and the last thing her father had said before the car spun off the road, a whispered prayer trembling on his lips—"Dios nos está poniendo a prueba."

            God is testing us.

            Joanna wasn't sure if they had passed.

            The funeral felt like a hazy, bad dream—one Joanna wished she could forget. Strangers whispered in hushed tones, their pity-laden glances piercing through her like needles. But it wasn't their sorrowful stares that shattered her. It was her mother. The way she looked at Joanna—no, not at her, but through her, past her—as if she were something too painful to see.

            Joanna was still here.

            Santiago and her father weren't.

            Maybe her mother blamed her. Maybe she didn't. But Joanna could feel it, all the same—creeping into the space between them, thick as the dust that collected in the forgotten corners of their home. Her mother's grief was an open wound, bleeding into the air like smoke, lingering in the walls, clinging to Joanna's skin no matter how hard she tried to scrub it off. Her mother drifted through the house like a ghost, hollow-eyed, a mere echo of the woman she once was. She never spoke their names—never Santiago's, never her husband's. As if saying them would make the loss real. As if silence could keep the dead from being gone. But Joanna knew better. She knew the truth in a way no one else could.

            She had survived, and they hadn't. And that knowledge gnawed at her, burrowing deep into the marrow of her bones. It festered in the quiet moments, dark and insidious, impossible to escape. At night, it whispered to her. It should have been you. The thought pressed against her ribs, curled around her lungs, and made every breath feel stolen. It wasn't just guilt—it was certainty. Survival wasn't a gift. It was a mistake based on pure chance. Rotten luck. She had been left behind, holding onto life when it should have been someone else's to keep.

            So, she stopped speaking. Stopped trying. Stopped searching for warmth in a house that had long since turned to stone. What was the point? Grief had swallowed everything whole.

            Home had become the first grave.

            And yet, life pressed on, as it always does. Indifferent. Relentless. The world did not stop for grief, did not bow its head for Santiago or her father. Days unraveled into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. The sun still rose, audacious in its warmth, shining down on a world that had no right to keep spinning without them.

            At fifteen, survival was no longer just about loss. It became softer, fragile—clinging to the remnants of girlhood that refused to fade, like the last breath of a dying summer. Those edges of innocence, frayed and battered, whispered to her that she wasn't entirely ruined. There was still something left in her, something worth saving. The promise of first love bloomed unexpectedly, delicate as a prayer, something she never thought she'd taste. Not in a life so steeped in despair, where even the smallest joys felt like a betrayal, like a sin she didn't deserve to indulge in.

            She found it in Joel—the seventeen-year-old boy with soft, dark hair that curled just slightly at his temples, his features sharp yet kind, a jawline still touched by the softness of youth. And his eyes—those deep, chocolate-brown eyes—glimmered with flecks of gold when the light hit just right. His lips were full in a way that made her stomach flutter every time he spoke, his voice carrying the kind of warmth that felt like a home she wanted to come back to every day.

            Joel captivated her without even trying.

            To her, he was beautiful in a way that felt almost unreal—effortless, radiant. A boy who walked through life with ease as if he was made of light, while she was nothing but darkness.

            Joanna saw herself as damaged—just a bleeding heart, barely held together by the memories that haunted her. She thought her scars were too deep, too visible, that they marked her in a way no one could ever look past. Certainly not someone like Joel. So when his gaze met hers, unwavering and full of something she couldn't quite name, she didn't understand it at first. Why would he look at her like that? Like she was someone worth knowing? Worth holding? She told herself she was nothing more than a fleeting moment to him—a distraction, an escape from his own responsibilities. But with each passing day, she saw the truth in the quiet ways he cared.

            It began innocently enough. The way he looked at her as if she were worthy of every piece of his attention. The way his hand would linger just a second longer when it brushed against hers while they walked side by side. The way he smiled at her–all sweet with his Southern boy charm—from across the room like no one else existed. The gentleness in his voice when he said her name. There was a tenderness in him she had never expected that made her feel like she could finally breathe again. He made her feel seen, like something more than the horrors that had shaped her. With Joel, she was someone else—a girl who could still be loved.

            And then, one night, he kissed her.

            They were parked on the outskirts of Austin, beneath the hush of a star-scattered sky, in his beat-up pickup truck. The headlights were switched off long ago, leaving them in the gentle embrace of moonlight and the distant glow of streetlamps. The night was quiet around them, save for the low murmur of the radio—Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris singing in harmony, floating through the cab like a lullaby. This had become their ritual. Joanna, lingering in the space between school and home, avoiding the walls that felt more like a tomb than a place to rest. And Joel, never asking why, never pressing, just letting her stay. He never minded spending time with her in parking lots, on empty roads, in the still pockets of the city where they could simply exist together, undisturbed.

            She was mid-sentence when it happened—her words, soft-spoken and unimportant, fading away the moment his hand found her cheek. His thumb traced over her golden skin, a touch so light yet so consuming that it stole the oxygen from her lungs. She went still. His gaze followed the path of his fingers, tracing her features as if committing them to memory, as if she were something sacred—something worth remembering. His brown eyes, deep and endless, held a tenderness so profound it sent her heart pounding, each beat falling right into the palms of his hands.

            It was reverence.

            It was devotion.

            It was love.

            Joel leaned in, slow and hesitant, his breath mingling with hers. For a moment, his lips ghosted over hers, just barely brushing against each other. The touch nearly unraveled her. He was giving her space to pull away. She didn't want to. The world outside faded, the music turning to static in the background, the city beyond them ceasing to exist. There was only him. Only this moment, suspended in time.

            Then, finally, he kissed her.

            It wasn't the shy, fleeting kiss she had once imagined as a little girl dreaming of fairytales. No, this kiss was wild in its tenderness, devastating in its devotion–a kind of worship she had never believed she could receive. His lips moved against hers like a vow, like a hymn, pressing into her with a reverence so achingly gentle it felt like salvation.

            In that kiss, she felt holy.

            For a brief, impossible moment, she let herself believe she was worthy of this—not because she had earned it or because love was something she had to prove herself deserving of, but simply because of the way he held her, as if she was precious. His hands were calloused, yet soft in every other way—one cupping her cheek, the other splayed across her back, pulling her in like he was afraid she might slip away. He wanted to kiss away her scars, lick her wounds, and somehow heal her. But Joanna knew better than to believe love could make her whole again. She wasn't whole—not really—and no matter how affectionate his gaze or how tenderly he held her, she knew love couldn't cleanse the stains she had carried for so long.

            Love didn't heal all wounds. It only made them more bearable.

            And in the end, it was her burden to carry alone.

            Still, she clung to him, even when it hurt. With Joel, she felt as though she was worthy of grace, of goodness. In his touch, she felt pure—as if her sins could be washed away. Even though she knew love could never truly save her, she let herself sink into the comfort of his arms, into the gentleness he offered so freely, and allowed herself to dream she could be deserving of so much more.

            For now, it was enough.

            For now, she could pretend this love was something she could keep.

            A piece of her girlhood she could still claim as her own.

            At sixteen, she realized survival was no longer about clinging to the fragile remnants of innocence; now, it was about facing the truth that would shatter everything she thought she knew. She had once convinced herself that love could shield her, that somehow, life would align in a way that made sense. But life does not yield to hope or dreams. And when she found herself holding a secret, when the first faint line appeared on the test, the truth became undeniable—girlhood was no longer hers to claim.

            She was pregnant.

            Girlhood had died.

            Though the world had already seemed to fracture after the death of her brother and father, this felt different—this was the ground itself splitting beneath her feet in a way that felt final. Everything changed, warping unrecognizably in an instant. The tender touch of Joel, the first taste of love she had dared to believe in, became distant—like a forgotten story whose words she could no longer recall.

            She wasn't a child anymore. No one needed to tell her—her body, her mind, even her breath as it caught in her throat, made it painfully clear.

            The news reverberated through the silent hallways of her home, where the quiet never quite left, where her mother's stare was laden with unspoken blame and utter disappointment—heavy, sharp, like arrows aimed in between her ribs.

            Joanna didn't know how to cope with the fact that she was pregnant without feeling trapped. There was a life growing inside her—a constant reminder of everything that had gone wrong and everything she couldn't undo. Her body had become a foreign land, a battleground between the girl she once was and the woman she was becoming. She had never truly been a child, never had the chance to run free, to dream, to imagine a future untouched by the scars of her family's brokenness. And now, she never would. Forced to face this new reality—a life she could no longer ignore—her childhood slipped through her fingers, falling too fast to catch, too fleeting to hold onto long enough to say goodbye. In its place, a new kind of survival took root—the slow surrender of what was lost and the mourning of dreams drowned beneath what was to come.

            In the sweltering Texas heat of July, Sarah was born.

            Her daughter. Her reason.

            Joanna had never known fear like this—not the kind that gripped her when she was young, not the kind that followed her like a ghost. This fear was different. It was vast, terrifying in the way it cracked her open. She had spent the hours before Sarah's birth caught in its grip, her body trembling with exhaustion, pain laced through every inhale, but nothing—nothing—compared to the moment they placed her daughter in her arms.

            Tiny. Warm. So impossibly perfect.

            Joel had been there, his hand clasped tightly in hers through every contraction, every wave of agony that pulled her under. She had seen the terror in his eyes, the way his fingers shook when they finally rested against their daughter's impossibly small back. He was so young—too young—but in that moment, he held Sarah as if she was the most precious thing in the world, as if he had been waiting his whole life to meet her. Joanna would never forget that look on his face—awed, overwhelmed, as though the entire universe had just been placed in his hands.

            She was terrified too, but oh, she was in love.

            Sarah was hers in a way nothing had ever been before. The love she felt for her was boundless, fierce—a force so intense it shattered the darkness. It surged through her veins, powerful and unrelenting, a love that consumed her, bordering on desperation—because Sarah was everything Joanna had ever wanted, and everything she feared losing. Everything she feared failing. That fear loomed over her like a dark cloud—the fear of history repeating itself, of the wounds Joanna carried somehow becoming Sarah's to bear. Yet through it all, Joanna held onto one unwavering truth: she would do anything to keep Sarah from that fate.

            Joanna knew she couldn't shield Sarah from everything—no mother could. But she would fight tooth and nail, tear through every fear, every mistake, every scar, to make sure her daughter never mistook silence for love, never had to scrape and claw for the warmth she deserved. Sarah would never know the heartache of feeling unwanted, of being invisible in a world that demanded more than she could give. That was the promise Joanna made, not just in her heart, but with every fiber of her being. A vow to her baby girl.

            Sarah.

            Named after their song—This Is Sarah's Song by Glen Campbell. A melody that once drifted through the speakers of Joel's truck, back when they were just two kids clinging to one another. It had been their song before they even knew it belonged to someone else. Before they knew their love would bring them a daughter. Before they knew love like this could exist.

            Joanna didn't know if she would be a good mother.

            But she knew she had to try.

            Survival had always been about moving forward, about forcing herself through each day, even when it felt like weathering a storm rather than building a life. But marriage—that was supposed to be different. It was meant to be a shared journey, a partnership built on trust, support, and unconditional love. In the beginning, Joanna had believed that marriage would be a refuge, a place where she and Joel could face the world together, stronger for it. But somewhere along the way, she found herself simply enduring it. She had once been filled with hope—the hope that Joel would be her protector, her guiding light through the darkness, that their love would shape a family that could withstand anything. But over time, that hope had dwindled, burned to ash.

            Joel had tried—at least in the beginning. He held her when she cried, whispered reassurances when fear crept in, comforted her on the nights she admitted, in a voice so small and fragile, that she was terrified of becoming her mother. He promised her she wouldn't—that she never would be. And for a while, she had believed him.

            But time, as it often did, had a cruel way of stripping away reassurances, leaving only the bare bones of old fears behind.

            She had spent months—years—afraid of what she might become, clinging to the belief that she could love Sarah enough to prevent the past from repeating itself. Yet, as the days blurred together, she began to wonder if she'd been naïve to think she could keep it at bay. The grief, the trauma, the nightmares—old as they were—lingered in their home, clinging to the walls like shadows that would never leave. And with them came the silence. Not the silence of her childhood, but one just as merciless. It stretched between her and Joel, creeping into the spaces where warmth had once lived, where love had once been enough. It was the silence of two people who had forgotten how to find each other, who had drifted too far apart to reach across the distance.

            And in that silence, the fear she had carried for so long began to fester.

            It wasn't just the fear of becoming her mother anymore. It was the fear that it was already happening—that no matter how much she loved Sarah, no matter how fiercely she tried, the cracks were beginning to show. Was it in the way she flinched at small, sudden sounds? The way she pulled herself together a second too late? The tremble in her hands when she reached for Sarah in the dark, always afraid, always on edge? Would her daughter grow up feeling it—the unspoken sadness, the grief without a name, the way love could feel distant even when it was right there?

            So, she tried harder. She smiled when it didn't come easily, laughed when her heart wasn't in it, filled their home with lullabies and promises she desperately tried to keep, with bedtime kisses that lingered just a little longer than necessary. She told herself it was enough. That it had to be enough. But at night, when Joel turned away in his sleep, when the space between them stretched wide and empty, she found herself staring at the ceiling, willing herself to believe it. She buried the quiet resentments deep—places even she couldn't reach—convincing herself that love could still survive between two people who no longer knew how to find each other, no longer spoke the same language.

            Once, they'd run toward each other, but now they only seemed to drift further apart.

            She smiled when Joel came home—exhausted, distant, the boy he had been slipping further away with each passing year. His dreams, once burning so bright, had dulled. She told herself this was marriage—compromise, sacrifice, endurance. That love wasn't measured in stolen kisses or whispered confessions, but in the small things—the swallowed pain, the way she held herself together so it wouldn't spill over. But deep down, she knew better. Love wasn't supposed to feel like duty. It wasn't meant to be something she had to hold together with quivering hands. And somewhere between the sleepless nights and the empty chairs at the dinner table, she realized they weren't living in love anymore—they were living in the memory of it. The promises they had once shared in the dark, the vows spoken when the world had felt limitless, had never been built to withstand what came after.

            Because surviving wasn't the same as living.

            And Joanna had spent so long surviving she no longer remembered how to do anything else.

            Yet she stayed—until she couldn't anymore.

            The room around her felt like a place she'd never quite fit into, the walls closing in, pressing her from all sides. The door to their bedroom was closed, Joel still asleep, unaware. She thought about waking him, about telling him what was tearing at her heart, but the words never came. What could she possibly say that would explain the emptiness that had settled in her chest, the terror that gripped her tight enough to choke her? How could she explain that she had tried—God, she had tried—to make this life work, to shape herself into the kind of woman who could be satisfied with what she had, who could tame the restless ache inside her, who could be the perfect wife and mother? But she couldn't.

            Joanna was scared. The fear wasn't just about leaving—it was about what came after. About what it meant to walk away from the life she had built, from the home she had fought so desperately to keep whole. It was about Sarah—about the way her daughter's eyes still lit up when she saw her father, the way the house still echoed with laughter, even when love had gone silent between its walls.

            Joanna pressed a hand against her stomach, an old habit from when she used to carry Sarah inside her, back when she still believed she could protect her from everything. But how does one protect a child from a breaking home? She had believed, once. She had believed that God had a plan for her, that He would carry her through the trials, that there was meaning to the suffering. But now, she wasn't sure. Was there a plan, or was this just life falling apart in front of her, like the fraying edges of an old rope?

            She wasn't sure she could survive this.

            She wasn't sure she could survive leaving Joel.

            Leaving Sarah.

            She had told herself over and over again that it was the right thing to do. She reached for the suitcase she had packed hours ago, her hands unsteady. There wasn't much inside, just what she needed. She stood there for a while; her body turned toward the door and away from her dear husband whose slumber had gone unprovoked, her hand trembling over the handle.

            She had survived so much, but this?

            This felt different.

            I need to leave, she told herself again. I have to leave.

            But her body refused to move.

            There was a hole in her chest now, a blackened, aching thing, and every breath she took felt like she was exhaling more of her soul with it. She squeezed her eyes shut. If she stayed any longer, she would talk herself out of it. She would crawl back into bed, press herself against Joel's back, and tell herself that she could endure it just a little longer. That maybe tomorrow would be different. That maybe, if she loved him a little harder, if she tried just a little more, she could fix what had already fallen apart. But wasn't that what she had been doing all along? Holding onto something that had already become undone, clenching her fists around dust and calling it whole?

            Her grip on the suitcase tightened.

            Sarah deserved better. She deserved a mother who wasn't drowning, who wasn't teaching her, in the quietest of ways, that love was something you suffered through instead of something that made you feel alive.

            Joanna exhaled, long and slow.

           "I'm sorry," she whispered. She wasn't sure who she was saying it to—Joel, Sarah, or herself.

            "Joanna?"

            Joel's voice, thick with sleep and rough around the edges, cut through the stillness of the night. For a second, she let herself believe that he was still caught in the haze of half-dreams, that maybe he would turn over and drift back into unconsciousness, sparing them both from what came next. She closed her eyes, steeling herself. She couldn't look at him—not now. Not when everything was about to end. But then she heard the rustle of sheets, the creak of the old bed they had shared for so many years as he shifted.

            "Jo?" This time, there was more clarity in his tone—still groggy, but laced with something else. A flicker of awareness.

            Her heart felt like it was breaking in two, each beat echoing in her chest with the finality of the decision she had made. It's too late—the thought rang in her mind like a prayer that had gone unanswered. When she was younger, her father had told her that faith could move mountains. She remembered that, and yet now, standing here, on the cusp of losing everything, she found it hard to believe. Faith had always been the thing that kept her going. When she was a girl, when the world felt too big and too cruel, she clung to the idea that God had a plan. That the struggle was part of a grander design. But now, she wondered if He had turned His back on her, too. Her fingers curled tighter around the handle of her suitcase. She could feel his gaze on her back, burning her.

            "Where ya goin'?"

            Slowly, she turned, heart pounding so loudly in her chest she thought it might shake the walls.

            Joel was sitting up now, his hair a mess—tousled from sleep, sticking up in places like he'd run a hand through it one too many times. The dim glow of the bedside lamp cast soft shadows over his face, highlighting the sharp cut of his jaw, the mustache framing his lips, the perpetual furrow in his brow. At twenty-two, he already looked like a man who had spent a lifetime working himself to the bone. His sun-warmed skin, lined with faint traces of sweat, stretched over broad shoulders, the muscles in his arms tensing as he pushed himself upright. He looked stronger—but not in the way that made him seem invincible. In the way that made it clear he carried too much, bore too much.

            He blinked, trying to shake off the remnants of sleep, his gaze flickering from her to the suitcase. Then, his face shifted—so subtly most people might have missed it. But not her. She caught the tightening of his jaw, the way his fingers curled into the sheets, as if bracing himself for the inevitable.

            "I—" Joanna's voice wavered, the words sticking to the back of her throat.

            She didn't need to say it.

            Joel already knew.

            "You're leavin'," he said, and it wasn't a question.

            Joanna's breath hitched, caught in her chest like a dagger. "Joel—"

            His eyes darkened, and suddenly, he was swinging his legs over the side of the bed, standing and closing the gap between them before she could even decide if she wanted him to or not.

            "Joanna, talk to me," he urged, his voice low and hushed. "What's goin' on?"

            "I can't do this anymore."

            The words spilled out too quickly, but it was the truth, the undeniable truth that had been clawing at her from the inside. And yet, it felt like a betrayal. The man who had once been her world, the one who had held her through the darkest days, was now the one she was walking away from. It's too late, it's too late, it's too late—the thought ricocheted inside her head, louder than any plea he could muster.

            Joel flinched like she had struck him, his eyes flickering with disbelief and hurt. "What—what do you mean, you can't—?" His voice cracked. He paused, exhaling sharply through his nose before dragging a hand down his face. When he looked at her again, his eyes were softer. "Jo, if somethin's wrong, we can fix it. Whatever it is, we can—"

            "I've tried," Joanna interrupted him, her voice faltering, but she pressed on, forcing herself to hold his gaze even though everything in her was pulling away from him. "I've tried so damn hard, Joel. And I just—I don't have anything left."

            Joel shook his head slowly and took a small step closer. His hands hovered in the air between them, reaching as if unsure whether to bridge the distance, but he never touched her. "Jo, please," he pleaded. There was something raw in his voice, something that made her want to fall into him, let herself believe that maybe, just maybe, they could fix this. But she knew better.

            Her eyes dropped to the floor, the sting of tears threatening. She blinked them back, refusing to let him see. Then, with a slow, deliberate breath, she raised her eyes to meet his again.

            Her throat tightened, and she barely recognized the voice that came out of her. "You remember, don't you?" she asked. "Remember when we were so... sure? When everything felt like it was meant to be?"

            Joel didn't answer immediately, and he didn't need to. She could see it in his eyes, in the way they clouded over with the kind of sadness that only came from realizing the dream he's held onto for so long was just that—a dream. His body seemed to deflate, his shoulders sinking. For the first time in forever, he looked small, like the man she loved had been gutted.

            "I remember," he said quietly, the words rough as they scraped past his lips. His gaze drifted, almost unwillingly, to the photo on their nightstand—a snapshot from a time when they were younger, eyes full of life, caught in a moment of shared joy, untouched by the realities that would eventually tear them apart. Before Sarah, before the late-night shifts, before the responsibilities that stretched them thin. Before the resentment festered and grew too large to ignore.

            "I remember," Joel repeated, this time with a quiet conviction that sent a ripple of grief through Joanna. His voice barely rose above the silence, like a secret he wasn't sure he was ready to admit, as his eyes lingered on the photograph, its edges worn from years of reverent touch. "We were so damn sure, Jo."

            She could see the pain in his eyes, in the way he held the photo in his gaze—how his fingers had once traced its surface in the same way he used to touch her, with a kind of devotion, a belief that no matter what happened, they'd find their way through. But now, he wasn't even looking at her. He was looking at a past that seemed to slip further away with each passing day. His gaze flickered back to her, and in it, she saw the faintest echo of the man she had once loved—the man who had promised her forever, and meant it. The man who had been her home. The man who had believed in them with a fierce certainty, just as she had.

            "How did we get here?" she asked, the question escaping before she could stop it.

            Joel's hands curled into fists at his sides, his jaw clenched as he took another step closer, his presence almost suffocating in its intensity. His eyes, still dark and haunted, flickered over her, looking for something—anything—that might bring them back from this edge they were teetering on.

            "I don't know," he admitted with an exasperated sigh. "I just know that I'm not ready to lose you, Jo. I'm not ready to give up on us."

            The words were a blow to her gut, and she couldn't stop the pain that surged through her, brutal and sudden. It was the same plea he had made in the beginning of their troubles, the same cry for salvation when they'd both known something was slipping away. In a different time, when hope still lingered, maybe she would have fought for him. Maybe she would have fought for them. But now, the fight had gone out of her.

            It's too late.

            "I've been trying to hold on to something that doesn't exist anymore," Joanna confessed. "And I can't keep pretending. I can't keep pretending I'm okay when I'm so far from it."

            The silence that followed felt heavy with everything they had said and everything they hadn't. He didn't move. He didn't reach for her. Joanna could feel the tension beginning to consume them both. She had wanted to say so much, wanted to scream it all out, but now—what was the point? What could they say that hadn't already been said in the looks they shared when words failed? What was left to fight for?

            "And Sarah?" he asked, his voice cracking on their daughter's name. "Are you... are you takin' her?"

            Joanna inhaled sharply at the sound, breaking her heart in ways she didn't think she could still feel. "No," she whispered. "I could never take her from you."

            Joel's hands clenched tighter, the muscles in his arms rippling with the effort to hold onto control. "Then why are you leavin' us?" His voice broke once more, rough and painful.

            Before Joanna even realized it, tears began to spill down her cheeks, hot and unbidden, leaving streaks that felt like a raw confession. She couldn't stop them.

            "Because if I stay, I'll disappear."

            Joel stood there, breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling with a grief that seemed foreign to him. His face was tight, his eyes searching, as if he could somehow piece together the ruin of them in a single, desperate look. He opened his mouth, as if to argue, to plead, but no words came.

            Nothing could.

            "I still love you," she sniffled, her voice raw, quivering. "I'll always love you, Joel. But love isn't enough to fix this. It never was."

            Joanna had hoped—perhaps foolishly—that saying the words would offer some semblance of closure, a final thread to tie up the wreckage of what they had been. But there was no peace in this moment, no relief. Only agony. Across from her, Joel stood frozen, his expression crumbling, breaking in real-time. His eyes, glassy with misery and disbelief, searched hers as if he could find an answer, a lifeline, a way to stop what was already set in motion.

            "You really think... you really think this is the only way?" he asked. "You think walkin' out that door is gonna fix anythin'?"

            "I don't know," she confessed as fresh tears began to slip down her cheeks, showing no sign of stopping. "But I know that I'm suffocating here. I need to breathe again. I need to find myself... before I lose everything."

            Joel took a step toward her, his gaze pleaded with her, like he could somehow erase all the pain, all the brokenness with one look, one promise. "Joanna, we can fix this. We can—"

            She shook her head, his hope crushing her. The desperation in his eyes only broke her more, but she couldn't lie to him. Not anymore. "We've been trying, Joel. For years. I've been trying. But this—" she stopped herself, biting her lip to cover up a whimper that threatened to break through, "—this isn't just about us anymore."

            It wasn't. It hadn't been for a long time. It was about the woman she no longer recognized, the life she had lost somewhere along the way.

            "I need space," she said, more firmly this time. "I need time to figure out who I am without you, without this... this life we've built."

            The silence that followed was deafening. Joel stood there, unmoving, his face pale, drained of all color. She could see the wheels turning in his mind, his fists still clenched, calculating her words, weighing the impact of her decision. Every inch of him was fighting to hold on, but she was already slipping through his fingers.

            "Please," he begged, his voice so faint it was barely audible. "Don't do this."

            Her heart caved, the last shred of her resolve slip away. She never wanted to hurt him—not like this. Not in a way that felt so final, so irreparable. She hated herself for it, for the pain she was carving into him.

            "I wish I could tell you it's going to be okay," she whispered, her voice trembling, desperate to offer him something, anything, to soften the blow. It was in her nature—to soothe, to mend—but there was no mending this. Her lips quivered as she swallowed down the despair clawing at her throat. "I wish I could tell you things will get better, but I can't. Not for us. Not anymore."

            He opened his mouth, probably to say something else, to beg her to stay, but whatever it was died on his lips. He saw it too. The finality. The truth they could no longer ignore.

            It was over.

            "I have to go," Joanna murmured.

            The suitcase in her hands felt like a lead weight, pulling her down. She wished she could undo it all—take back the last few months, rewind to when she still believed there was a chance to fix things. But there was no more room for that, no more time to pretend that anything could go back to what it had been. The words she had been holding inside for so long finally spilled out, and in the emptiness they left behind, she understood: there was no turning back now. Joanna took a deep breath, trying to steady her racing pulse. She had made the choice. She had to walk away.

            "Goodbye, Joel."

            With one last lingering glance—one final, silent goodbye—Joanna turned toward the door. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the world itself was pressing down on her, forcing her to carry her decision alone. Could she really leave it all behind? Her hand reached for the doorknob, but her fingers hesitated. She closed her eyes, momentarily surrendering to the storm inside her, feeling the burn of tears behind her eyelids. Her breath came in shallow, measured gasps, but there was something else there, something deeper—a conviction she couldn't ignore. She wasn't just leaving for herself. She was doing this for Sarah.

            For the little girl who had become both the light of her life and the mirror to everything she had lost. Sarah deserved more than this—more than a broken, fractured woman who couldn't breathe in the life she had created. She deserved a mother who wasn't pretending, who could stand tall in the world, proud of who she was. A mother who could teach her daughter how to rise, how to thrive, even in the face of hardship. Joanna's grip tightened on the handle, the cold metal biting into her skin as if to ground her. Deep down, she knew that staying would only hurt Sarah more in the long run. Because how could she show her daughter what it meant to be strong if she wasn't strong herself? How could she teach her to believe in love, in family, in hope, when she had lost her own sense of all of that? Her hand shook as she turned the doorknob, but when the door creaked open, a surge of strength that hadn't been there moments ago washed over her—painful, terrifying, yet resolute. This was it. The only way forward. She had no choice but to keep moving.

            "Tell Sarah I love her very much," Joanna said, choking back a sob. She swallowed hard. A shaky breath. A pause. Then, softer—more for herself than for him—"This isn't forever."

            And with that, Joanna stepped into the hallway, the door behind her closing with a gentle click. There was no turning back now. The hardest thing she had ever done felt like the only thing she could do. For Sarah. For herself. For the woman she knew she could become, if only she were brave enough.

            Perhaps, at last, she could learn not just to survive, but to live—to feel her own heart without fear of it breaking.

♱ WORD COUNT: 7k
♱ AUTHOR'S NOTE: wow, i'm not crying, you're crying! welcome to dust in the wind! the pain has only just begun. writing this was tough because i care so much about joanna and joel, but it was necessary for the story. a few things to know: joanna is just two years younger than joel, and i changed his age to emphasize how young of a father he was. as you will come to know, joanna is deeply damaged. she suffers from survivor's guilt, trauma, grief, depression, and anxiety. her father had undiagnosed mental health issues that led to a religious psychosis, and joanna has religious trauma that she doesn't fully realize yet. as the story goes on, you'll see joanna unravel in similar ways to her father, though she doesn't understand it. she's haunted by her parents' ghosts—her mother, grief-stricken, and her father, mentally fractured. joanna always feared becoming her mother, so she pushes herself to be the best mom for sarah, even if she makes mistakes, like leaving her. she loves sarah more than herself, but she's not perfect. she was a young mother and still figuring out who she is. and her relationship with joel is complicated—there's love, but it's messy. alas, i digress, more will be revealed soon! anyways, i truly hope you enjoyed the prologue, and i'm excited to see where this journey takes us. please feel free to share your thoughts, feedback, or what you'd like to see in future chapters. any votes, comments, or support are always appreciated!
much love,
𝖑𝖚𝖓𝖆