What I wanted was his incapacity — the simple, structural certainty that he could never do to another woman what he had done to me, that the licenses were gone and the record was permanent and the door to that particular power was closed to him forever.

Once I had that, I was free to stop thinking about him entirely, and I did, almost completely, and the freedom of that was worth more than any amount of gloating could ever have been.

You do not win against a man like Julian by hating him well.

You win by becoming a person who has genuinely stopped needing to think about him at all.

Chapter 19 — The Shield

“And how is the foundation doing?” Sarah asked, brightening, turning the conversation the way you turn toward a window.