Her hands were gripping the blindingly white ceramic of the sink while she tried to get her emotions under control, which she had been failing to do for the past hour or so. Her make-up was smeared with dried mascara tears tracking her cheeks, her eyes red and puffy, and her nails had been chewed off to the point of bleeding. Still, she kept eye-contact with herself in the mirror, hoping it would somehow convince herself to get collected enough to make a decision and to unlock the bathroom door. However, the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to curl up and cry in the corner of this room, hoping that she would somehow escape it all.

"Leave before they leave you, that's how you survive," her mother had said to her once, when she had asked her why they had to leave again. At some point through her childhood, she had stopped questioning her mother's behaviour, and just took it as reality. So, she repeated that sentence in her head as a mantra, a prayer, whenever she had to lose the friends she had gained. The alternative, of seeing how unnecessary it was to leave, was just unbearable. "Remember this, Jamie, I won't always be here, so all you have is yourself and the open road."

Now, she is twenty-three. The choice is hers. To either fix what she never realized she broke, or to turn her back and never return. To stay or to leave.

She had been sitting at the wooden dinner table, late at night while she was working on some lesson plans for her kindergarten class, when Clare had walked in with a stack of papers in her hands and an unreadable expression on her face.

Clare spoke softly, like you would to a frightened child, and said, "Jamie, we need to talk."

Jamie didn't understand. If she is being honest, she still doesn't understand it completely. After all the times she tried to convince Clare she wouldn't leave, she's now the one who will be left behind. All alone.

It hadn't been definitive, the divorce papers just a last warning, begging Jamie to change. She knows what she has to change, she has known for a long time, but she had thrown herself into her work to avoid it. Always her excuse, an escape from what she knew she had to face. She had been reminded of it every time Clare pointed out cute baby clothes, or when one of her friends got pregnant.

Clare wants to start a family.

Jamie can't even get herself to think about it.

Not for the reasons one might think. She doesn't hate kids, she loves them, why else would she willingly choose to be a kindergarten teacher. No, the reason was more complex. Every time she was reminded of the possibility of having children, she was thrown back in time to her own childhood. The hurt that runs like veins through those memories. The ache got bigger and bigger each time and it was eating her alive. She didn't tell Clare.

Maybe that's why Clare thinks it's all her fault, that Jamie just doesn't want a family with her. when that couldn't be further from the truth.

But the choice remains. When she gets out of the bathroom, she has two choices. She can either sign those papers and lose the one good thing in her life, or she could hug her wife and figure out a way to fix this. The latter would seem like the right thing to do.

She had met Clare in a pub one stormy night. The only reason they started talking was because Clare loves the band that Jaime had been wearing merch of that night, so Claire pointed it out while taking Jaime's order. It had been a relatively calm night, so they kept chatting until the end of Clare's shift, and Jamie walked her home. Their first kiss on her doorstep, confidence fuelled by the alcohol in their blood. They didn't lose each other after that, weeks became years, dating became marriage. They were there for each other, holding each other through the bad nights and the good nights.

She should stay, she should open up and be with the one she loves the most, but she looks in the mirror and sees her mother's eyes. There she finds the answer.

Maybe when she's driving away, their house getting smaller in her rear-view, she regrets it, but she knows that this is all she has. Herself and the open road.