Owen leaned closer to me.
“Are we in trouble?”
I knelt down in front of him, brushing a strand of hair from his face.
“No,” I said softly. “We’re not.”
Behind me, Grant’s voice rose again.
“No, I need access— I can’t just not access my own accounts!”
A pause.
Then—
“What do you mean ‘court order’?”
His words echoed.
Court order.
I stood back up slowly.
Twelve years.
Twelve years of building something together.
Of trusting him.
Of believing that even if things fell apart… there would be some fairness left.
There hadn’t been.
Not then.
But maybe…
Now things were being balanced in a different way.
Sabrina stepped back from him completely now.
“This isn’t what you told me,” she said, shaking her head.
Grant turned to her, desperate.
“Just give me a minute, okay? I’ll fix this.”
But she didn’t look convinced anymore.
His mother looked at me then.
Really looked.
And for the first time, there was no superiority in her eyes.
Only uncertainty.
Maybe even suspicion.
As if she was starting to wonder how much she didn’t know.
I held her gaze for a second.
Then I turned away.
“Owen,” I said gently, “come on.”
We started walking again.
Down the steps.
Across the edge of the parking lot.
Away from the noise, the tension, the chaos that was no longer mine.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
I looked ahead.
The sky was clear.
Wide.
Open in a way it hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Somewhere new,” I said. “Somewhere better.”
Behind us, voices overlapped.
Phones ringing.
Arguments starting.
Everything cracking at once.
I didn’t need to watch anymore.
Because whatever was happening back there…
It was only the beginning.
And this time—
I wasn’t the one losing everything.
To be continued…
