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And Eleanor had become more than just a boss. She'd become a friend, someone who saw me as I was now, not as who I'd been or what I'd done. She didn't know my whole story—few people did—but she knew enough to understand that I was rebuilding, and she gave me the space and support to do it.

The writing classes had come later, a suggestion from my mother after she'd found me scribbling in notebooks late at night.

"You've always had a way with words," she'd said. "Even as a little girl, you were always making up stories. Maybe it's time to see where that could go."

I'd been sceptical at first. What did I have to say that anyone would want to read? But the local community college had offered evening courses in creative writing, and on a whim, I'd signed up.

The first class had been terrifying. I'd sat in the back, barely speaking, certain that everyone else belonged there more than Idid. But then the instructor, a retired professor with kind eyes and a gentle voice, had asked us to write about a moment of transformation, and the words had poured out of me.

I hadn't shared what I'd written that day—it was too raw, too personal—but I'd gone back the next week, and the week after that. And gradually, I'd found my voice. Not just on the page, but in the classroom, in discussions about character and plot and the power of storytelling.

Within the twelve months I had spent in England, I had drafted my first ever book, and I had called it "To Her." I'm still not sure if I will ever publish it, or send it off to see if anyone else would like to publish it, but I did it. I had become the version of myself I was meant to be, and I wouldn't have become that way without the path I had walked.

The book had started as a series of letters—to Con, to the woman he might love someday, to my younger self, to the people I'd hurt along the way. But as I'd written, it had evolved into something else: a story about a woman learning to face her demons, to stop running, to believe that she was worthy of love even with all her flaws and failures.

It wasn't my story, not exactly. I'd changed names, places, circumstances. But the emotional truth of it was mine, the journey from self-destruction to self-acceptance, the painful process of letting go of someone you love because you know it's the right thing for both of you.

Writing it had been its own form of therapy, more effective in some ways than the sessions I'd endured in rehab. Because this time, I was the one asking the hard questions, the one digging into the painful places, the one deciding what to reveal and what to keep hidden.

My mother had been the first to read it, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, turning pages with careful fingers as I'd paced nervously around the cottage.

"It's beautiful, Geraldine," she'd said when she'd finished, tears in her eyes. "It's honest and raw and hopeful. It's you."

I wasn't sure about that last part. The protagonist of my book was braver than I felt, more resilient, more certain of her path forward. But maybe that was the point of fiction—to imagine possibilities, to create versions of ourselves that we could aspire to become.

Or maybe she was right, and I just couldn't see it yet. Maybe I was stronger than I knew.

I thought about Con often, wondering where he was, what he was doing. True to my word, I'd checked his Facebook occasionally, careful not to like or comment on anything, just watching from a distance as his life unfolded without me.

He'd done well in the season in Canada. There were photos of him with new faces, grinning widely, looking happy and fulfilled. No sign of a serious relationship, at least not one he was sharing publicly, but that didn't mean there wasn't someone.

I hoped there was. I hoped he'd found someone who could love him the way he deserved, without reservation or fear. Someone who could give him what I couldn't.

And yet, a small, selfish part of me was relieved each time I checked and saw no evidence of that someone special. It was a contradiction I lived with, wanting him to be happy but not quite ready to see him happy with someone else.

Dr. Winters would have had a field day with that, I thought with a wry smile. She'd have seen it as proof that I was still holding on, still not fully committed to letting go.

Maybe she'd have been right. But I was working on it, day by day, choice by choice. And I was getting better at recognizing the difference between loving someone and needing them, between holding them in your heart and holding onto them.

My sobriety had held firm through it all—the grief, the uncertainty, the slow process of rebuilding. There had beenclose calls, moments of temptation so strong I could taste it. A particularly bad day when I'd found myself standing outside a pub, the sounds of laughter and clinking glasses calling to me like a siren song. A night when memories had crashed over me in waves, and all I'd wanted was the oblivion of chemicals coursing through my veins.

But I hadn't given in. Each time, I'd called my mother, or James, or one of the few friends I'd made in my writing class. I'd talked it through, ridden out the craving, reminded myself of how far I'd come and what I stood to lose.

One year sober. It felt like both an eternity and the blink of an eye.

As I stood at the window, watching the rain turn from a drizzle to a downpour, I thought about the letter Con had sent, about his words that had both wounded and healed me. About how he'd said that the person he needed wasn't me—not now, maybe not ever.

But he'd also said something else, something that had lodged in my heart and refused to leave:But that doesn't mean that person won't be you.

It wasn't a promise. It wasn't even really hope. It was just an acknowledgment that people change, that futures aren't fixed, that doors closed now might someday open again.

I didn't know if that would ever happen for us. I didn't know if I wanted it to, or if it would be right for either of us. But I knew that I was changing, growing, becoming someone I could be proud of. Someone who didn't run from pain or numb it with chemicals. Someone who could face her past without being defined by it.

And for now, that was enough.

I turned away from the window as I heard my mother's key in the lock, her voice calling out a greeting as she shook rain from her umbrella. I moved to help her with the groceries, smiling ather cheerful complaints about the weather, the easy domesticity of our life together.

This wasn't where I'd expected to be a year ago. It wasn't the life I'd planned or the future I'd imagined. But it was real, and it was mine, and I was grateful for it in a way I'd never been grateful for anything before.