Pregnancy hormones already had me on edge when Daniel’s midnight shout of “FIRE!” sent me into sheer panic. I stumbled toward the nursery, ready to grab our baby-to-be and run—until I heard his laughter.
“Relax, babe,” he smirked. “Just messing with you.”
But you don’t “mess with” a wildfire survivor about fires. Not when they’ve described waking to crackling flames. Not when they still check smoke detectors obsessively.
As I packed my bags, his protests—”It’s not that serious!”—only proved how little he understood. Real love doesn’t terrify you for sport. Now my son will grow up knowing his worth—and mine—by the boundaries I refused to cross.
