Chapter 10
Jess
I sat in my apartment at three in the morning, staring at the partnership offer on my coffee table like it might suddenly sprout fangs and bite me. Maybe it should. It would be less painful than what it was actually doing to me.
My laptop glowed in the darkness, seventeen tabs open because apparently I dealt with life-altering decisions the way I dealt with legal research—by drowning myself in information until I couldn't feel anything anymore.
Except I could feel everything. That was the problem.
I felt the ache in my chest that hadn't gone away since I'd watched Sam's face go cold when I told him I had to go back.
I felt the panic that had been my constant companion for three weeks, getting worse instead of better.
I felt the bone-deep exhaustion of trying to convince myself I'd made the right choice when every cell in my body screamed that I'd made the worst mistake of my life.
And under that emptiness, there was a desperate, clawing need to run. To get in my car and drive north until I hit mountains and clean air and a man who'd claimed me as his.
I opened a new browser tab, my fingers shaking as I typed: cost of living Burke Vermont
Then another: breaking apartment lease penalties
Another: remote legal consulting
I wasn't planning anything. I was just... looking. Just seeing what it would take to blow up my entire life and start over. Just torturing myself with possibilities I was too scared to actually choose.
Except I wasn't too scared anymore, was I?
I'd been terrified on that mountain, lost in a blizzard, separated from everyone, facing the very real possibility of dying alone in the cold. And I'd survived. I'd set up a tent in whiteout conditions and kept myself alive and proven I was stronger than I'd ever believed.
So why was I more terrified now, sitting in my safe apartment, making the "responsible" choice?
Because dying on a mountain would have been quick. This slow death I'd been living for years—this was the real terror. Waking up every day and feeling nothing except the weight of expectations I'd never wanted in the first place.
My hands moved without conscious thought, pulling up a blank document.
Dear Ms. Sorento,
The cursor blinked at me, waiting.
I thought about partnership. About hundred-hour weeks and impossible deadlines and panic attacks in conference rooms. About becoming Belinda in twenty years—bitter and alone.
I thought about Sam. About the way he'd looked at me in that tent, like I was brave and strong and exactly enough.
About the way he'd kissed me in his cabin, claiming and tender at once.
I thought about mountains and clean air and building something that mattered instead of just billing hours.
And I started typing.
I am writing to tender my resignation from Hutchins & Ross, effective immediately. This decision is not made lightly. However, I have come to realize that the life I've been building is not the life I want to live.
God, that felt good to write. To admit. To finally say out loud—even just to myself—that I'd been living the wrong life.
I hope you can understand.
I knew Belinda wouldn't understand. Wouldn't understand walking away from power and prestige and everything she'd spent her life accumulating. Wouldn't understand choosing love over career.
But I understood. Finally, after three weeks of trying to force myself back into a life that didn't fit anymore, I understood.
I didn't want this. I wanted Sam. I wanted mountains. I wanted to wake up without my chest tight with anxiety. I wanted to build a business I was passionate about instead of just surviving one I hated. I wanted to live instead of just exist.
Sincerely, Jessica Madison
My finger hovered over the send button.
This was it. The moment everything changed. The moment I chose myself—really chose myself—for the first time in my adult life.
I hit send before I could second-guess myself.
Then I sat there in the silence of my apartment, and waited to feel regret.
It didn't come.
Instead, I felt something I hadn't felt in years.
Relief.
And underneath that relief, a tiny seed of hope. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe Sam would forgive me for being too scared the first time. Maybe I could fix the worst mistake I'd ever made.
Maybe I could still have everything I'd been too afraid to choose.
Get to Vermont. Tell Sam I love him. Beg him to forgive me. Build a life that doesn't kill me.
Simple. Necessary.
I started packing before I could talk myself out of it.
THE NEXT WEEK PASSED in a blur of logistics and determination.
I sold most of my furniture to a used dealer for pennies on the dollar. Packed my clothes, books, and essentials into boxes. Gave notice on my apartment, paying the exorbitant lease-breaking fee without flinching.
I went shopping—but not at designer outdoor stores this time. I went to a real outfitter in New Jersey, where a grizzled old man took one look at me and asked, "What are you actually going to be doing?"
"Living in Vermont," I said. "Hiking, camping, learning to survive."
He set me up with gear that was functional instead of fashionable.
Showed me the difference between equipment that looked good and equipment that worked.
Taught me how to layer properly, how to choose boots that would actually support me, how to pack a bag for real wilderness instead of Instagram photos.
When I left, I had everything I needed to survive in Sam's world. Not because I expected him to take care of me, but because I was going to take care of myself.
I took an intensive wilderness first aid course online, studying every night after transitioning my cases. Learned about hypothermia, frostbite, altitude sickness. Learned how to treat injuries, build shelters, find water.
Learned all the things Sam had tried to teach me in three days, except this time I was paying attention.
I set up my legal consulting LLC, designed a website, reached out to former clients who might need remote services. I could do this. I could build a life that wasn't tied to eighty-hour weeks and partnership tracks and slowly drowning in other people's expectations.
I could save myself.
And then maybe—maybe—Sam would want to be part of the life I was building.
On my last day in Manhattan, I stood in my empty apartment, looking out at the skyline I'd thought represented success.
Now it just looked like a prison I'd finally escaped.
My car was packed. My forwarding address was a PO box in Burke, Vermont. My phone had seventeen messages from former colleagues telling me I was insane.
But I felt saner than I had in years.
I locked the apartment door for the last time and started driving north.