Getting out of the loop gave me the space I needed. The feeling of not being wanted had been there longer than I wanted to admit, and it hurt, especially because my instinct was to stay and push back, to prove I still belonged. But I got tired. At some point, I stopped resisting.

I still don’t know if leaving was a decision I made for myself or something that was already happening to me. Maybe both. All I know is that when it ended, I could finally breathe.