I hadn’t listened to a single one. I simply forwarded them all to Naomi’s office for the harassment file.
I took a slow sip of my coffee and looked up at the massive accent wall in the center of my new living room.
The painters had just finished rolling the final coat this morning. The smell of fresh paint still lingered faintly in the air, but it wasn’t an unpleasant smell. It smelled like a fresh start.
The wall wasn’t “cloud white.”
It wasn’t “eggshell,” or “bone,” or “alabaster,” or any of the sterile, boring, compromising colors my mother and sister had constantly argued over.
It was a brilliant, strong, incredibly deep sapphire blue. It was bold, uncompromising, and unapologetically vibrant. It was the color of the deep ocean, the color of a clear midnight sky.
It was the color of freedom.
I smiled, reaching out to gently touch the dry edge of the wall. I had survived the crash. I had survived my family. I had taken back the keys to my own life, and I was finally the one in the driver’s seat.
And for the first time in my twenty-four years on this earth, as I looked at the beautiful, deep blue wall of my own home, I felt that the canvas of my life was absolutely perfect.
