Page 76 of Slayin Villain
But he didn’t.
And I wasn’t crawling back.
By dawn, I drove home.I was already packing.Tossing clothes into boxes and shoving essentials into trash bags.I didn’t cry.I didn’t have the luxury.I had a baby to think about.A whole life to protect.I moved on autopilot, my mind stuck on one truth.
He didn’t come after me.
Even after everything.
He didn’t come.
The last duffel zipped shut with a sharp zip, and I grabbed my phone.My thumb hovered over his name.Villain.One word, one man, too many shattered pieces.
Instead, I scrolled to “Mom.”
She picked up after two rings.“Rachel?You okay, sugar?”
“Hey,” I said, trying not to let my voice crack.“I was wondering… is the guest room still a guest room?”
There was a pause.“You okay?”
I hesitated.“No.But I will be.”
“You coming home, baby?”
I nodded, tears finally pooling in my eyes.“Yeah, Mama.I’m coming home.”
She didn’t ask questions.She never did when it mattered.“I’ll make up the bed and put on a pot of beans.Drive safe.”
By noon, I was gone.
I broke my lease, paid the fee in cash with a half-hearted apology to the landlord.
I quit my job, left a short, polite resignation letter on my manager’s desk.
I traded in my car, got a newer one in a color no one would recognize.Something safe.Something clean.
By sundown, I’d moved to the other side of Nashville, into the house I grew up in, with magnolias blooming out front and my mama waiting at the door like she’d never stopped.
The minute I stepped inside, she wrapped me in a hug that cracked me open.
“My girl’s having a baby,” she whispered, hands holding my face, smiling so big it made my heart break.“You’re gonna be such a good mama.”
That did it.
I cried.
I cried into her shoulder while she rubbed my back and whispered prayers and promises I hadn’t heard in years.
It didn’t matter how old I was, Mama made everything feel like it could be okay.
“You don’t have to talk about him,” she said later, while we unpacked my bags in the room with the yellow walls.“But I hope he knows what he lost.”
I gave her a look.“He didn’t even try to stop me.”
“Well,” she said, folding a sweatshirt.“That makes him dumber than a sack of bricks and twice as useless.”
I laughed through the ache in my throat.
