I did it anyway, through the doubt, because I had reached a point where I needed to know the truth more than I needed to be comfortable, and because some stubborn thing in me refused, at last, to keep gaslighting myself on their behalf.

That year in the dark was the hardest thing I have ever done.

It was also the thing that saved my life.

Not the ten minutes in the courtroom.

The year of quiet, doubting, unwitnessed work that made those ten minutes possible.

And I want to say something specific about that work, because it is the practical heart of this whole story, and it is the part that could actually help a person rather than merely move them.

The single most important thing I did, in that year, was write things down.