mountains.
“Because someone once told me I was boring.”
He laughed.
“What did you do?”
I smiled.
“I finally realized boring can be another word for peaceful.”
He nodded toward my limp.
“You ever fight?”
I thought of Derek.
Claire.
Danny.
Robert.
Melissa.
The blue mat.
The five-minute clock.
The version of myself I had spent years trying to bury.
“A long time ago,” I said.
“Were you good?”
I looked at him.
Then I laughed.
“Good enough to quit.”
That evening, I drove home beneath a red mountain sunset.
No one was waiting to accuse me of being too quiet.
No voice notes.
No secrets.
No performance.
Just a small house, an old dog I had adopted from the county shelter, and a porch light glowing against the dark.
I stood outside for a moment before going in.
Fourteen years of marriage had ended because my wife believed quietness
