Sanctuary

Evelyn's POV

Sometimes, choosing joy feels like betrayal.

Especially when you've lived most of your life bracing for disappointment. When your body knows how to flinch before it learns how to exhale. When you grew up in a world that taught you good things were only borrowed, not earned.

But this life—this home—wasn’t borrowed anymore.

It was ours.

And the only thing left to do was keep choosing it.

---

The job offer came on a Monday morning.

It wasn’t unexpected. I'd been contacted quietly a few times over the past year—colleagues from my pre-Luca days reaching out, name-dropping grants and tenure track possibilities.

But this one was real. Prestigious. Big-name university. Department chair. Full autonomy. A salary that made me blink.

It was flattering.

And terrifying.

Because the offer meant moving.
Hours away.
New city.
New everything.

And that kind of change doesn’t just shift a schedule.

It uproots our lives.

---

I didn’t tell Riley immediately.

Not because I didn’t trust her.

But because I was ashamed that even for a moment, I’d considered it.
That some old part of me—some hungry, ambitious, pre-motherhood ghost—had whispered, You deserve this.

But what I deserved was already in my bed.

Already curled up on the couch sketching a girl with a lion plush.
Already reading bedtime stories to a boy who once cried every time she left the room.

Still—I kept the email open for two days.

Unread.

But visible.

Like a door half-ajar.

---

Riley found me in the kitchen Thursday night, wiping down a counter that didn’t need it.

She set her sketchbook down, leaned against the frame.

“You’re vibrating,” she said.

I looked up.

“What?”

“Your energy. It’s all static. Like you’re hiding something.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Then sighed.

“I got an offer.”

Her brows lifted. “What kind of offer?”

“Chair of Mathematics. Willington College.”

She blinked. “That’s… huge.”

“I know.”

“And?”

“And it’s in Chicago.”

The room went still.

I braced for disappointment. For her to withdraw. To say something clipped and controlled like she used to when she was afraid of being left.

But Riley didn’t panic.

She didn’t shrink.

She stepped closer, laid her hand over mine, and said simply:

“Do you want it?”

I blinked.

“What?”

“Do you want it, Evelyn? Not just because it looks good on paper. Not because it would make your old mentors jealous. Do you want it?”

The air left my lungs.

---

Riley was curled on the couch with her legs under a blanket, sketchbook in her lap, a cup of mint tea between her palms.

I sat beside her, kissed the crown of her head, and said:

“I want to take the job.”

She paused mid-sketch.

Her pencil stilled.

Then she looked up.

“You do?”

I nodded. “I want it. I’ve always wanted something like this. But I didn’t think I could have it without losing everything else.”

She blinked slowly.

“Then don’t lose it,” she said softly. “And don’t lose us either.”

“I don’t want to go without you.”

“You’re not.”

She smiled.

Bright. Brave.

“Let’s go together.”

And just like that—our future clicked into place.

---

We found a house within a month.

Something with a huge backyard and warm light and just enough creaky corners to feel lived in.

Riley’s art studio would be by the sunroom.
Luca would have a tree outside his bedroom window.
Nova would help paint the porch lavender.

A fresh start—but not a clean slate.

We were taking everything with us: the love, the scars, the messy, perfect life we’d built by hand.

---

Nova came home on a Saturday.

She stepped into the new house quietly, her lion clutched to her chest, eyes wide.

She didn’t say much.
Didn’t need to.

Her presence filled the space like she'd always been part of it.

Riley had painted her room before she arrived—lavender walls, a book nook, fairy lights shaped like stars.

Nova stood in the doorway for a long time before stepping in and whispering:

“Can I stay?”

Riley knelt beside her and brushed a curl from her cheek.

“This is your room,” she said gently. “You already live here.”

---

That night, Nova climbed into bed with Riley without being asked.

She held Riley’s hand until her breathing evened out.

I stood in the hallway, listening.

Overwhelmed.

Moved.

Made new.

This was what choosing each other looked like—again and again and again.

Not because we had to.

But because we could.

---

The next morning at breakfast, Nova stirred her cereal with slow, sleepy swirls, then looked up and asked:

“When are you get married?”

Riley froze, spoon mid-air.

I smiled, slow and certain.

“Soon, baby,” I said. “Very soon.”

---

Coming to an end ......

~F