By the Christmases I didn't spend baking cookies with my mother.
By the sheer volume of times I considered giving up, giving in, going home.
You could even measure it by other things.
Newer things.
Like by the number of bruises I had accumulated over the course of each twelve-month period.
How many times I broke the little bones in my hands.
How many times I had to have something stitched.
How many new styles of fighting I learned.
How much skill I had managed to pack into that time.
Until one day, I did it.
I bested my teacher.
A feat never before accomplished.
One I never thought would occur.
But I did it.
And that meant one thing.
I had no idea what I might return to.
What hurt feelings there might be to be found.
What resentments I would have to bear.
What awkwardness I would have to endure as people grew without me.
What new faces and connections I would have to learn.
But regardless of all of that, it was time.
I was going back to Navesink Bank.