I considered the question honestly. I thought about the early mornings and the missed dinners, and the long, patient years of giving a company more than it deserved. I thought about the people on that payroll list, the ones who were still working, still teaching, still holding the network together because someone finally decided they mattered.

“Yes,” I said. “But only because I stopped paying.”

We sat there until the tea went cold, watching the streetlights come on one by one. Somewhere across the valley, a freight train sounded its horn, long and low and steady, carrying someone’s cargo toward a destination it would reach on time.

And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t worrying about whether it would.

THE END

 

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