There was a time, in the early days of my recovery, when I had imagined this moment and rehearsed the things I would say to him, the accusations, the condemnations, the speech that would make him understand the full weight of what he had done.

But when the moment came, I understood that saying nothing was far more powerful than any speech could be.

Because a speech would have given him what he still, even in that courtroom, most wanted from me: my attention, my emotion, proof that I still felt something about him strong enough to voice.

Silence gave him nothing.

Silence told him the truest thing there was to tell him, which was that he no longer had any power over me at all, not even the power to provoke a word.

So I simply adjusted the lapel of my jacket, and let him go, and felt nothing but the clean, quiet closing of a door that had been open, and bleeding, for three years.