I’ve rehearsed leaving so many times I know it by heart
I know exactly what I’d pack first — not the important things, oddly, but the small ones. The charger. The good pillow. The photo of my grandmother that sits on the nightstand, the one I’d grab even in an actual fire, so of course it’s the first thing my mind reaches for in this quieter, slower kind of emergency too. I know which drawer has the passport. I know I’d wait until he left for work rather than do it…

