I didn’t stay in the city to watch them burn.
I moved into Theodore’s sprawling, quiet coastal estate for a while. The mornings there smelled like salt spray, cedarwood, and strong coffee, instead of toxic perfume and desperate lies.
He didn’t treat me like a fragile victim. He put me in charge of the foundation’s restructuring. And on the weekends, he taught me how to fly in one of his smaller, private prop planes.
The first time we lifted off the runway, pushing through the heavy, gray cloud cover into the brilliant, clean blue light of the upper atmosphere, Theodore glanced over at me from the pilot’s seat. The sunlight caught the lines around his eyes as he smiled.
“Still burning, Harper?” he asked over the hum of the engine.
I looked down through the window at the shrinking, insignificant world below us. I felt the cold air coming through the vents, and for the first time in my entire life, I felt something infinitely better than anger.
“No,” I said, looking out at the endless horizon. “Just free.”
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