The only difference is, they aren’t free.” I turned on my heel and walked out the front door, leaving the keys on the kitchen counter next to a stale, half-eaten box of plain oatmeal. I didn’t look back as I got into my car.

As I pulled out of the driveway, the heavy, suffocating weight I had carried for five years vanished.

I was thirty-four years old, and for the first time since that crash on the highway to Cuernavaca, I was finally breathing fresh air.