Aaron and I fell in love the real way. The kind that consumes your days. We did everything together. He made me feel beautiful, wanted, chosen. He told me he’d never been with anyone like me. Emotionally. Physically. Sexually. We were obsessed with each other, and for a long time, I thought obsession meant safety. I tried not to fall too hard because I knew what heartbreak could do. But I did anyway. Fully. And I believed he did too. Then everything cracked. We got busted with drugs, and I took the fall so he wouldn’t go to prison. I ended up serving a year. At first, he was there. Money on my books. Daily phone calls. Promises. For six months, I survived because I believed in “us.” Then the calls stopped. I still called every day, telling myself something had happened, that there had to be a reason. Nine months into my sentence, he finally answered just to tell me he was with someone else. Then he hung up. I cried for hours in my bunk, sick to my stomach, struggling to breathe. Five years of friendship, love, plans for marriage. Gone. At the exact moment I needed him most. The rest of my sentence was unbearable. Heartbreak isn’t poetic. It’s physical. It hurts your chest. Your stomach. Your will to exist. When I got out, my daughter picked me up from the bus station. Two weeks later, I contacted Aaron to get my belongings. We had just bought a house together before I went in. His name was on it. We had six cats we treated like children. He had left the woman he cheated with, and somehow, against my own better judgment, we got back together. I forgave him. I promised never to throw it in his face. Living without him hurt worse than the betrayal. A month later, I checked into rehab. Court ordered. Twenty-eight days. The logical thing. He dropped me off with two suitcases and told me he’d be there. For sixteen days, he answered my calls. On day seventeen, he didn’t. That familiar feeling hit the floor again. I cried. I wanted to leave rehab. But I stayed. Because prison wasn’t going to be the ending of my story.