If I’d put that money into investments, I could have traveled. Bought a nicer place. Paid for comfort. Medical care. Peace. Instead, I invested in love. I invested in the idea that one day Rebecca would look at me and see what I’d done, and it would mean something. Now she’d looked me in the eye and said the greatest gift would be if I died. I called her. I needed to hear it again, not because I wanted pain, but because my brain still searched for a misunderstanding like a drowning person searching for air. She answered on the fifth ring. “What do you want now?” she said, annoyed. “Rebecca,” I whispered. “Did you mean what you said?” “Of course I meant it,” she replied. “Mom

, it’s time you understand. I need space. Your obsession with me isn’t healthy.” “Obsession,” I repeated, stunned. “Yes,” she said, sharp. “You call it love. I call it suffocating.” I hung up without saying goodbye. It was real. No misunderstanding. No apology. No softening. That night, I lay awake staring at the ceiling, and somewhere around three in the morning, the grief shifted. Sadness can make you heavy. It can make you curl inward and disappear slowly. But something else arrived—clear, cold determination. Rebecca wanted me to die. Fine. I couldn’t die on command. But I could become dead to her. I could disappear. And not as a victim. As a choice. The next day,