In this raw and reflective chapter, Rita Marie begins the painful, necessary work of release. Letting Go is not clean or simple, it is dizzying, slow, and filled with the ghosts of what could have been. Through pieces like Reality, Maybe Next Time, and Ashes, she contends with the beauty and brutality of change. Grief is no longer fresh but lingers in the bones; love remains, but the illusion is dissolving. With trembling hands and blistered feet, she learns to walk away, not because she wants to, but because she must. This chapter is the sound of heavy footsteps on a quiet sidewalk, the ache of memory, and the first flicker of hope in the streetlight’s glow. A reckoning. A burial. A vow to begin again.