It landed on a woman who had been braced for it for the better part of a year.

That is the thing he never understood about the timing of his cruelty.

He thought he was catching me at my weakest — flat on my back, in pain, undefended.

But a woman who has spent nine months quietly preparing to survive you is not at her weakest in the moment you strike.

She is at her most ready.

My hand was steady because everything in me that could have trembled had finished trembling long before he walked through that door.

“Adriana!” she answered on the second ring, bright with anticipation.