The weeks began to blur—not into chaos, but into routine.
Jasmine learned the city by walking it. She learned which café brewed coffee strong enough to quiet the nausea, which streets were busiest in the mornings, which corners stayed quiet even at dusk. She learned the sound of her own footsteps without anyone else's pace beside them.
Routine was armor.
At her first prenatal appointment in the new city, the nurse smiled at her chart. "You're right on track."
Jasmine nodded, listening carefully, asking practical questions. Measurements. Nutrition. Fatigue. She absorbed the information as she always had—with focus and intent. This was not something happening to her. It was something she was managing.
When the appointment ended, she stepped outside into the sunlight and allowed herself one slow breath.
Six weeks became eight. Eight became ten.
The life inside her was no longer theoretical.
---
Work began quietly.
The consulting firm occupied two floors of a modest building downtown. No glass walls. No nameplates announcing importance. Jasmine liked that. Her role was clear, contained, and deliberately behind the scenes.
"Your analysis is thorough," her supervisor told her after the first week. "You don't oversell. You don't undercut. You just… solve problems."
"That's the job," Jasmine replied.
The woman smiled. "Exactly."
Jasmine kept her hours regular. She left on time. She ate lunch instead of working through it. Every decision revolved around sustainability, not ambition.
This life was not about acceleration.
It was about endurance.
---
At night, she dreamed less.
When she did, Keith appeared only vaguely—faceless, distant, like a memory stripped of relevance. She woke without panic, without the hollow ache that used to follow his absence.
Distance was doing its work.
Her phone remained silent except for messages that mattered—her mother, appointment reminders, work updates. She did not check social media. She did not search his name.
Ignorance, she discovered, was a form of peace.
---
Across the country, unease had taken root.
"She's not using her old accounts," the investigator reported. "No social presence. No public appearances. Nothing."
Keith leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. "What about employment?"
"She accepted a consulting role under her maiden name. Low visibility. Private firm."
Low visibility.
Keith frowned. "That's not like her."
"It's… intentional," the investigator said carefully.
Keith dismissed him with a wave, but the word lingered.
Intentional.
Jasmine had always been deliberate, but this—this was strategic withdrawal. A dismantling of access. He had assumed silence would soften her, that time would bring her back to the negotiating table.
Instead, she had removed the table entirely.
---
That night, Jasmine stood in front of the bathroom mirror, toothbrush paused in her hand.
She had been avoiding this moment.
Slowly, she lifted her sweater.
There was still no curve. Nothing anyone else would notice. But she could feel it now—a subtle heaviness, a shift she couldn't name but instinctively understood.
Her reflection met her eyes.
"You're real," she said quietly.
Not to herself.
The words settled something inside her.
She pulled the sweater back down and finished brushing her teeth, calm restored.
---
A letter arrived two days later.
Not an email. Not a call.
A letter.
Jasmine recognized the handwriting immediately.
Keith.
She stared at the envelope for a long moment before opening it.
Jasmine,
I don't know where you are, and I won't pretend that doesn't bother me.
What happened between us didn't need to end the way it did. We built something real, even if it failed.
I think we owe each other a conversation—without an audience.
She folded the paper once. Then twice.
And placed it in a drawer she labeled, simply, Closed Matters.
---
That evening, as the sun dipped below the trees, Jasmine sat by the window and opened her planner.
She turned to a blank page and wrote one line at the top.
No contact. No exceptions.
She underlined it.
This distance was not avoidance.
It was protection.
And it was already saving her in ways no one else could see.