CHAPTER 13
I began to keep a journal,
writing down my thoughts in the late evening after the baby went to sleep.
The words flowed easily,
filling the blank pages with the truth of what had happened,
and the truth of what was happening now.
Writing was a way to externalize the memories,
to put them on paper so they didn't have to live in my head.
I wrote about the day I left the hospital,
the cold air hitting my face,
the realization that I was free.
I wrote about Linda's voice,
how it used to make me freeze,
and how it now sounded like empty noise.
I realized that her cruelty was born from weakness,
a desperate need to dominate because she was empty inside.
Mark's complicity was a different kind of weakness,
a failure of courage,
a choice to look away because looking was too difficult.
Understanding them didn't mean forgiving them,
it just meant they were no longer monsters in my mind.
They were just flawed,
broken people who had chosen to hurt someone else.
And by understanding that,
I stripped them of their mythic power,
reducing them to their true size.
They were small,
insignificant,
and trapped in their own cycle of unhappiness.
I closed the journal,
capping my pen,
feeling a profound sense of accomplishment.
The past was becoming history,
a narrative with a beginning,
a middle,
and a definitive end.
I walked through the quiet apartment,
checking the lock on the door once,
not out of paranoia,
but out of routine safety.
I looked at the baby,
adjusting her blanket,
feeling a deep warmth in my chest.
We were a team,
she and I,
bound by a survival that had forged us into something stronger.
I lay down in my bed,
the sheets cool and clean,
and I fell asleep without checking the time.
There were no nightmares that night,
May you like
only deep,
restful sleep that restored my soul.
