The last time I was out of the country was when I was eighteen.

It wasn’t quite summer yet. I had dropped out of school, and I already had a new college lined up to transfer to in the fall.

But that wasn’t for another five or six months, and I hated every minute of being home in my shitty little town.

My father had a thriving law firm about ten minutes away now, so there was no chance of us moving. I was stuck at home in the place that the misery first started, and worse, many of my classmates from high school still lived there. They knew I was back, they knew what I’d done, and it delighted them. They left printouts of the article covering my arrest at our door. They taunted my mother if they saw her at the gas station or grocery store.

I myself didn’t leave the house.

I was terrified.

So eventually, Mom started taking us on mini road trips. She worked part-time at the local library, but she quit the job in order to be home with me every day. And if I had the energy, or found myself in a good enough mood, she’d take me driving to explore the other parts of Texas.

“There’s more than where we live,” she said behind the wheel of her old Camry, wearing sunglasses too big and boxy for her face. “Daddy taught me that,” she added, beaming as much as she could for someone as reserved as she was.

“Yeah, he taught you that by bringing you to London and then forcing you to live here,” I had griped.

“Yes, but now I have a car. I have these big roads. I can go anywhere I want.”

“You never do.”

“What am I doing now?”

“What, it took me getting in trouble for you to start exploring? That’s sad.” My surly teenaged pessimism was a force to be reckoned with.

“Maybe that’s sad,” Mom conceded. “But sometimes it takes a tragedy for us to get moving. To find the strength to look for better things.”

“So I’m a tragedy now?”

Again, the pessimism.

I was definitely not in a particularly charming or likable phase of my life. After the bullying in high school, then the entirely different kind in college, I felt like the world was against me. Sometimes, I felt like even my mom was against me. I could see and feel how much she loved me with every fiber of her being, but sometimes I would catch her gazing at me with almost a fearful look. Like she didn’t quite know who I was, or who I’d grown up to be.

I spent a lot of time in my room just watching movies and TV. Mom offered to sit with me, but she was awful at sitting still, and she always lectured me on my taste in sappy romantic movies.

But the road trips helped us.

They started small, with little half-hour drives to Dallas. Then they got longer. I’d take my Una Magazines with me for those rides. For the three-and-a-half hour journey to Austin, my dad joined us, and he sang the whole way. My magazines were of particular comfort for me that time as my mother and I switched back and forth between being amused and enraged by him.

In Austin, we went to the botanical garden, and despite my dad’s protests for his weak knees, we hiked Mount Bonnell. At the top, I met two women in their mid-twenties who offered to take a picture of us in front of the view. They wound up inviting the three of us to watch their roller derby bout that night, which we did. Dad loved it. Mom not so much. But she did appreciate that one of the girls spotted me in the stands, and dropped by to say hello.

It was fun. I felt like I made more memories during those trips than I did in all my years at school. I was noticeably brighter after the travels. My mom noticed that. It just made me feel like there was so much more out there than I was giving the world credit for, and that I did in fact have the potential to start over again – for real this time.

For my birthday, my dad suggested we all take a trip back to London. It would be my mom and my first time back since moving to the States.

I didn’t remember much. I realized now that I was four when I left – the same age Lucie was when her mother took her away from Julian. Four years was a significant chunk of time, but apparently still easy to lose grasp of in memory.

The plane ride to the airport was cramped and uncomfortable, and I didn’t feel any kinship to London when our taxi finally arrived into the thick of the city. I felt disappointed that a place that was supposed to be a part of my identity was as much a stranger to me as any other European city might be.

But within two days, I was in love.

I loved how big the city was. I loved the architecture. I loved the way everyone sounded like my dad. Somehow, I felt less like an outsider there than I did at home.

There, it felt like anything was possible.

“You should have found a school to transfer to in London. Your mother would have moved back here with you in a heartbeat,” my dad said as we sat in a café one morning, my mom still asleep.

“Yeah, right. Like you’d survive being away from her so much.”

“I would fly to see you two every Friday. And then I’d return to work on Monday.”

I laughed. “We don’t have the money for that. Sorry. But one day, I’ll earn it for you. Promise.”

“I believe you.” Dad clinked his cappuccino cup to mine. “You’re hardworking enough, and the fact that you chose New York to start over tells me you’re not scared of anything. But let me tell you something. Some people with your brains and your talent still get lost in a city as big as that one, because there are so many people and so much to do. But I believe in you that you’ll look temptation in the eye, walk right past it and make yourself proud.”

“And you and Mama proud.”

“Us too,” Dad said. “No matter what you think sometimes, we could never stay mad at you. Sometimes, the heartbreak will hit us out of nowhere, because you’re our daughter and we wish you never even had to experience what you did at that school. We get angry that you were hurt. You might see us during those times and think we’re angry with you, but we’re not. We’re just going to take time to forget what happened, Sara. But eventually, we will. Your mother and I just want you to be safe and happy. That’s all any parent wants. We’re proud of you, Sara, and we believe very much in you.”

I couldn’t forget those words, or that trip.

It put me in awe of my parents’ forgiveness. My mother, in particular, had sacrificed her entire life and everything she knew to create and raise me. She then watched me make a mess of her hard work by getting myself into the trouble I did, and even after that, she continued sacrificing to simply ensure that I was happy, and encouraged. She had only just begun acclimating and hitting her stride in Texas when everything happened with me at college. She had given up every one of her dreams just to give me the chance to meet mine.

So it was from that point forward that I swore to myself I’d repent for what I did. My parents deserved everything from me, and I would stop at nothing to make their hearts swell with pride for me.

My mom cried the day I snagged that job at June Magazine out of college. My dad booked tickets to New York for that very weekend, so he could take me to a celebratory brunch.

It was hard not to conflate their happiness with my happiness at the job. I associated my job with us moving on from what happened.

The drama my freshman year of college became a distant memory we didn’t speak about. It still hung over our heads every day, but higher now – barely noticeable except for when certain topics came up, like wanting to look for a new job. My mom would ask what was covered in background checks, I’d quietly Google it, and neither of us would talk about why she had asked. We both knew, but we didn’t need to say it aloud. It still hurt too much.

So over time, I told myself I was happy to stay with the same company. Perhaps I could’ve left, but the process of even thinking about it sent me back to the bad memories, and I preferred staying where I was – in a state of comfort. Predictability.

For so long, I was sure I liked my life that way.

“I wish I’d found you earlier,” Julian murmured as I sat on his lap, both of us entwined in one seat on the private charter. “I would have hired you to my company in a heartbeat.”

I smiled. “Yeah, but that’s the point. You wouldn’t have found me earlier, because I felt too safe there,” I whispered. “And after everything I’d been through, there was nothing more important to me than feeling safe. Like there’s nothing to worry about, and I can just relax.”

“Understood,” Julian murmured, running his fingers through my hair. I closed my eyes as I reveled in the feeling of his calm blending into mine.

I couldn’t wait to touch down in Biarritz, but shortly after our conversation, I drifted off to sleep against his chest.