Tessa.
I truly hadn't expected this.
After the call with Mira, after hearing the words you resigned because of your marriage, I had already braced myself for the worst. In my mind, marriage had suddenly taken on the shape of a cage, beautiful on the outside, but locked from within. I thought I had lost something essential, something that defined me. My work. My independence. A piece of who I was before everything changed.
I had been so sure of it that the conclusion felt inevitable.
And yet—here I was.
Standing in front of Robert, hearing him say I still had a place, that I still worked, that I wasn't reduced to nothing more than a title attached to his name. The realization hit me slowly, like sunlight breaking through a cloud I hadn't noticed was so heavy.
Funny enough, I wasn't caged.
