car.
I said yes.
Accepting help no longer felt like weakness.
Before leaving, I stood for a moment at the bottom of the courthouse steps.
The scars on my arm were visible beneath the afternoon sun.
For years, I had treated them like evidence against myself—proof that I had stayed too long, hidden too much, and allowed fear to make my world smaller.
Now I understood them differently.
They were not the reason the judge believed me.
The records, recordings, witnesses, and financial documents established the facts.
The scars were simply what remained after I survived them.
Marcus had once told me that no one would believe a woman who waited before speaking.
He was wrong.
Silence had not erased the truth.
It had given me time to preserve it.
