I took the very worst thing that a human being had ever done to me and I turned it, with everything I had, into a wellspring of protection and healing for people I would never know.

That is not the same as being glad it happened; I will never be glad it happened.

But it is the only way I have found to keep the harm from having the last word.

The last word, I decided, would not be Julian’s knife, or Selina’s smile, or the two small silhouettes on an ultrasound.

The last word would be everything good I could build on top of all of it.

And there is, I promise you, no more powerful revenge against the people who tried to destroy you than to take the wreckage they left and build, from it, something that saves lives.