I could not make them love me.

That had never been on the menu.

But I could stop paying for the privilege of being used, and I could do it in a way that was clean, and lawful, and left me nothing to apologize for, and I could do it tonight.

By the time Derek pulled into the valet line I had the whole of it worked out, and I walked into that restaurant smiling, and the smile was real, because for the first time in two years I knew exactly what I was and was not going to do.

Clarity like that does not arrive gradually.