I thought I was giving up the last meaningful thing I had just to survive another month. I had no idea that walking into that pawn shop would unravel a past I didn’t even know was mine.
After my divorce, I didn’t leave with much.
A cracked phone that barely held a charge. Two trash bags stuffed with clothes I didn’t even like anymore. And one thing I’d never planned to let go of: my grandmother’s old necklace.
That was it.
I didn’t leave with much.
My ex-husband didn’t just walk out. He ensured I had nothing to fall back on.
The miscarriage had already hollowed me out when, a week later, he left, too. He went off with a younger mistress.
***
For weeks, I ran on instinct more than anything else.
I picked up extra shifts at the diner. I counted every tip as if it were oxygen.
But sheer stubbornness only stretches so far.
